16 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
many rats. Wearily they dragged themselves in rags and dirt to 
the nation’s capitol, vainly seeking relief from their fancied condi- 
tion of wrong and inequality. 
Do you suppose that if those men had ever known the pleasure of 
eating a strawberry shortcake, the fruit of which they had grown on 
their own vines, they would ever have been found in such a humili- 
ating condition as we viewed them. 
Again the alarm is turnedin. Electric wires vibrate with fearful 
rapidity. Click! Click! Click! Click! The operators listen and 
write. A strike ison! The daily papers are ablaze with its details! 
A great railroad corporation is tied up and every wheel is stopped! 
Bridges are burned! Business is suspended! Great industries are 
sacrificed and towns are left to starve! I don’t suppose one of those 
strikers ever knew the comforts of home with a nice fruit garden. 
That is not the way they seek comfort. Arbitration is enlisted and 
again the wheels revolve and business for atimerevives. But hark! 
Again with overwhelming crash another strike comes on. But this 
time with better formed plans and more disastrous effect. Property 
is destroyed, cars are overturned and burned, men, women and chil- 
dren are victims of the deadly bullet, for the army has to be called 
out. Even local authorities are powerless. State sovereignty trem- 
bles, hesitates, and the national government declares martial law 
What aspectacle in this free, broad, generous land of ours, where 
every man can easily have his own home and live under his own 
vine and fig tree, with no call whatever for injuring the property of- 
others. 
Is the country bettered by this upheaval of its business interests? . 
Are the conditions changed in the least? It is true the Coxey army 
is disbanded, the strikes are put down, silver is demonitized, the 
tariff bill passed and election is over; butis any one a bit better off 
than he wasa yearago? Are not the conditions for unrest and dis- 
satisfaction just as great? If so, what can we, as horticulturists, do 
to improve the situation? Wecandothis: We can carry forward 
the work of disseminating knowledge regarding our calling, and in 
many ways we can turn men’s attention to our independent, health- 
ful and pleasant life, surrounded by fruits and flowers, our tables 
laden with fresh vegetables, sweet milk and cream, and with honey 
from our busy bees; and we can show them that when four dollars 
a day is not enough to bring them happiness, they had better seek 
with usa rural retreat and taste the joys only known to the horticul- 
turist. 
How can a man help being restless and dissatisfied working by 
the day, no matter whether he gets one dollar or five dollars, if he 
lives in contracted quarters in rented houses, with no garden or 
anything to interest him when his day’s work is done? The first 
thing he thinks of isto rush off somewhere and in conviviality 
squander the money he has earned. Suppose, instead of this, when 
his work was over, the mechanic could go to a home surrounded by 
trees and flowers with a garden of fresh growing vegetables; or if 
it were winter time, he could review mentally the lessons and expe- 
riences of the year, aided by “ The Minnesota Horticulturist” or some 
