226 ANNUAL REPOET. 



The following paper was then read : 



AESTHETIC FEATURES OF HORTICULTURE. 

 By H. H. YoDNG, St. Paul. 



Our American ancestors, having little leisure to devote to anything not intimate- 

 ly connected with their necessities, were compelled by circumstances to take strictly 

 utilitarian views of life. Contemplation of the beautiful did not contribute to supply, 

 ing their physical wants nor augmenting their fortunes, hence they left it to poets and 

 other imaginative impracticables, whose Utopian ideas seemed to them only worth}' 

 of derision. They appreciated solely the beauty of what was useful, and, in their 

 eager pursuit of competencies for themselves and families, whatever seemed most 

 available for service in this direction became admirable, though it might in itself 

 be ugly to the degree of repulsiveness. Even the comely person of the marriage- 

 able damsel, who lacked ability to assist materiallj' in laboring for the maintenance 

 of the family, or was without a considerable dower, was less attractive than homely 

 efficiency, or wealth. Heaven itself, instead of being a bower of bliss like the 

 ancient garden of Eden, with its groves, and meads, and murmuring streams, became 

 to them a magnificent city built of precious stones and paved with gold, and had 

 no tree but the tree of the bread of life growing therein. 



There was, however, a sufficient excuse for those rugged and eminently practi- 

 cable grandsires and forebears to disregard the beautiful. Their hands and thoughts 

 found other tasks for their employment, than the formation and contemplation of 

 what was merely ornamental and elegant. It fell to their lot to enter upon and 

 open up for civilized occupation a new and wild country. To invade the dense 

 and extensive forests and clear them otf in order to make room for their own homes 

 in the wilderness, and to open patches of land for cultivation, and they accordingly 

 laid waste lustily with axe and fire, without discrimination and with little concern 

 for the future wants and wishes of the race. Majestic oaks and elms, poplars and 

 maples, walnuts and hickories, fell crashing to the earth beneath their stalwart 

 blows, and, with graceful sycamores, wide- spreading beeches and pliant willows, 

 were consigned to devouring flames. None were spared because of their grandeur 

 or gracefulness, but large and small, stately and deformed, valuable and worthless 

 were alike included in the general sentence of condemnation, which pronounced 

 them useless cumberers of the ground and obstructions to the growth of golden 

 grain and other nutritive products of cultivated lands. 



When a farm was being opened in that age, the universal prevalence of the for- 

 ests was reason enough in itself why no thought should occur to them of leaving 

 trees for ornamenting the grounds about their residence sites; and, as groves in its 

 vicinity would have been senseless superfluities, because of the proximity of the 

 wild-woods, it could not be expected that care would have been taken for their 

 preservation. The desirable thing to be accomplished was to clear the land of its 

 timber, in order that the fructifying beams of the sun might have free access to the 

 soil, and the sooner this was done the better for the welfare of the settlers. So, 

 too, in laying out a new village, parks and shade trees were unnecessary, the de- 

 mand of the hour being for open space on which to build and plant gardens and 

 i^rass plats. If some venturesome wight of Aryan instincts, who recognized tem- 



