STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 129 
sketched would involve radical changes, but were I to purchase that farm, or 
open an entirely new place, my plan would be the same, though I confess I 
would much prefer to take a wild-wood farm or new prairie, to starting in to im- 
prove an old farm. I would dig up nearly everp tree and break the ground in 
June. The next spring I would plant the ground to potatoes, and give them 
thorough cultivation. Then the spring following, | would plant and sow the 
lawn, lay out the walks and drives, get it in shape. I hear some of you ask the 
question—what will this all amount to, if it don’t pay? I take the ground most 
decidedly that it will pay. It will pay you in the satisfaction of “bringing or- 
der out of chaos.’’ It will pay you in the pride you will take in it, and it will 
add a money value to your farm, ten times greater than the cost. If you wish 
to sell, it will attract a buyer sooner, and bring a better price. But aside from 
all consideration of profit, aside from all selfish consideration of satisfaction and 
pride, there is something about these horticultural studies and pursuits worth 
more than these. It is this, they make men, womeu an4 children better. Com- 
munion with nature, is next to association with deity. It refines the most stub- 
born human nature. I care not what a man may be, when he enters the sur- 
rounding of home, their-condition or appearance has an influence on him. He 
may ride to his gate in a catriage and liveried footman take down the steps for 
him‘ when he enters the gate, if the neatness of the lawn, the brightness of the 
flowers, the odor of roses, greet him, he enters his house a better man for these 
things being there. He may be a laborer, going home from his toil, with his 
dinner bucket on his arm, and the world uses him harshly, but when he enters 
his house if but a convolvlus wreaths the eaves, he is glad for a minute that his 
doorway is low, for it gives him an excuse to bow his head to natures God. 
