292 ANNUAL REPORT. 



My wife and I have brought up a family of girls and a single- 

 boy. I do not speak here to advertise the girls for the matrimoni- 

 al market; for all but one are gone, and we do not want any 

 one to come after her. But I was thinking when the toast 

 was given me, how much good the rose-garden at our housfr 

 has done the girls and their associates. How convenient it has been 

 when the young gentlemen from other wigwams were hang- 

 ing around, and the old folks in the way, for the girls to help the 

 cads out of their embarassment by saying, "come out and see the 

 roses, Jo," or words to that eflFect ; and as my wife and I have sat 

 on the front porch, and watched the evening shadows chase- 

 the retreating sunshine up the eastward bluffs, across the lake^ 

 we have thought that there were lessons in horticulture being 

 taught the boys out there among the roses what would be of some 

 use to them by and by when their wives want a man to handle the 

 old briars, or dig in the rose-garden, or foot the bills for a reason- 

 able supply of seeds or plants for house or garden. Who 

 could refuse, remembering the flower garden of young love's 

 dream. We may have thought, too, that the girl who gives- 

 a young gentleman such lessons in horticulture, and who 

 pins a flower upon his coat, or places a boquet in his hauds^ 

 as she bids him good night over the front gate, does her part 

 to make a husband for somebody who will be more of the lover in 

 married life for it, and who will find flowers in his home that will 

 be more attractive for his evening or other leisure hours than 

 society at the clubs or the cross-roads' groceries, and who will treat 

 his wife maybe as " the most splendid flower" of all. 



I remarked that we have but one boy in the family. At present 

 he is not much of a horticulturist. If he follows the plow with 

 any pleasure it is when it is returning from the field, or when some 

 neighbor has borrowed it and is taking it oflF the premises, or 

 when it is badly crippled and going to the blacksmith shop. He 

 does not feel the need of exercise in the garden. He loveth not the 

 hoe, and the dibble is an abomination. Also the spade. And he 

 would actually rather go without his strawberries than to pick 

 them for himself. Yet with all this there is hope for even him. He 

 may be eminent in horticulture some day; for after his mother has 

 bossed the job, and I have done the work to grow a few choice free 

 blooming roses, we notice now that when he comes home from the 

 shop, and fixes himself up for his evening walk, he too goes round 

 the corner of the house to the flower garden and cuts a bloom of 

 something for his coat collar and liberally helps himself to enough 



