STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. . 329 



or foaming over cascades, gathering volume as it flows, it descends 

 into the plain, irrigating a thousand meadows, or massing its 

 waters for strength, plunges over rapids and falls, driving the 

 wheels where the skill of man works out the polished jirodiicts 

 of civilization; at last gathering its great family of rills and rivers 

 into one superb channel, mature, deep and strong, it bears upon 

 its stately bosom the commerce of the West. It seems designed 

 not alone for the drainage of empires, but for the uniting of the 

 people on its shores into a single community of interests and 

 destiny. Unlike as are the productions of its varied zones, this 

 very diversity is a bond of union, for it substitutes inter-depend- 

 ence for rivalry. Its social conditions, too, are not the least 

 of its benefits. While we may fly from the protracted rigors of 

 a northern winter, you, with recij^rocal purpose, can leave the 

 enervating summer's heat, and find the roses of health among 

 some of the thousand lovely lakes that ornament our State. 



Between the summits of the Alleghany mountains on the east, 

 and the Rockies on the west; from the watershed of the continent 

 at Itasca on the north to the great gulf on the south, covering 

 twenty degrees of latitude and thirty of longitude, lies the 

 mighty valley of the great river, a continent in itself. Unsur- 

 passed in the variety of its soil and productions, it is the garden 

 of nature. Superb in the noble character of its scenery from 

 frost to flowers, it is in itself a poem. With the exception of the 

 Amazon, no valley on the globe will compare in size with that of 

 the Mississippi; and in its infinite resources and adai^tatiou to 

 the support and comfort of civilized man, it surpasses all others. 

 Even the fabled Nile dwarfs in comparison with the oi^ulence of 

 this marvelous valley. It has more than doubled the productive 

 l)ower of the United States. It has given an opulence to the 

 West which baffles competition. It steadily rises in the scale, and 

 with fresh resources astonishes the world. It is the donative of 

 anew and individual power to the republic, equal to a hemisphere 

 in its incalculable abundance. Around this river cluster im- 

 pressive memories, ft-om the days when the intrepid Ferdinand 

 de Soto discovered its waters, or a century later when Marquette 

 beheld its sources, till the hour when this exj)osition opened its 

 doors to receive the polished products of the civilized world. 



Youngest of all the states which border this illustrious stream, 

 Minnesota presents herself to you, her eldest sister. Within the 

 memories of you here X3resent our State has developed from bar- 

 baric solitudes into a well organized and equipped republic. 

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