Influence of Horticulture 12 /f> 



lar. That long covered wagon, which is the Noah's ark of 

 his preservation, is also the concrete essence of house and 

 home to him. He emigrates, he "squats," he "locates," 

 but before he can be fairly said to have a fixed home, the 

 spirit of unrest besets him; he sells his "diggins" to some 

 less adventurous pioneer, and tackling the wagon of the 

 wilderness,' migrates once more. 



It must not be supposed, large as is the infusion of rest- 

 lessness in our people, that there are not also large excep- 

 tions to the general rule. Else there would never be grow- 

 ing villages and prosperous towns. Nay, it cannot be over- 

 looked by a careful observer, that the tendency "to settle" 

 is slowly but gradually on the increase, and that there is, in 

 all the older portions of the country, growing evidence that 

 the Anglo-Saxon love of home is gradually developing itself 

 out of the Anglo-American love of change.* 



It is not difficult to see how strongly horticulture con- 

 tributes to the development of local attachments. In it 

 lies the most powerful philtre that civilized man has yet 

 found to charm him to one spot of earth. It transforms 

 what is only a tame meadow and a bleak aspect, into an 

 Eden of interest and delights. It makes all the difference 

 between Araby the blest, and a pine barren. It gives a 

 bit of soil, too insignificant to find a place in the geography 

 of the earth's surface, such an importance in the eyes of its 

 possessor, that he finds it more attractive than countless 

 acres of unknown and unexplored territory. In other 

 words, it contains the mind and soul of the man, mate- 

 rialized in many of the fairest and richest forms of nature, 

 so that he looks upon it as tearing himself up, root and 

 branch, to ask him to move a mile to the right or the left. 

 Do we need to say more, to prove that it is the panacea 

 that really "settles" mankind? 



* The philosophy of Mr. Downing in this chapter is profound and his 

 analysis of American character most penetrating. The evil effects of this 

 spirit of unrest and the desirability of neutralizing it through the simul- 

 taneous cultivation of the soil and of home ties were never more manifest 

 than in these days of revolution and reconstruction following the World 

 War. F. A. W. 



