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THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



©UK AFFILDATEB iOOllTl^ 



Fig. 2293. CoLEUS Bed in Mr. Goodman's Garden 

 AT Cayuga. (Photo by Sweatman). 



Cayuga.— The last misson of our society is to 

 strengthen the individual hands of the local mem- 

 bers in the improvement and adornment of their 

 homes, so that public opinion will approve of them 

 when they fearlessly say with "Elizabeth in her 

 ■German Garden," " I love my garden ! " 



At the present time it is, in small places like 

 Cayuga, considered effeminate to be fond of flow- 

 ers. One is met with a remark of this kind ; '' Oh 

 yes it is very pretty, but we have no call for this 

 sort of thing. " The farmers about us prosper and 

 thrive, but the little villager nods away a 

 local existence on a put-oflf plan and stunts 

 and dwarfs the deve opment of his intellec- 

 tual vision with a self-possessed conceit that 

 knows it all. Each year finds him in the 

 same rut — a grocery politician fighting im- 

 provement, a makeshift regardless of all 

 ordinary laws of sanitation, accustomed to 

 fence a piece of the street when he likes, 

 bound to throw his filth where he will, blind 

 to duty, obstinate and dirty ; lull of a pen- 

 ury in public matters that tends to poverty of 

 soul and pocket. 



The growing distaste for country life is 

 not because of the farm. Our country is 

 full of noble, intelligent farmers; it arises 

 in protest against the little villager. 



Imagine then the consternation at the 

 temerity of our society advocating public 

 gardens, and securing them, too. the first 

 season. We read of, look at and enjoy the 

 public gardens of Toronto, Hamilton, Quebi c 

 and Montreal, but in the country where it 

 «hould be the easiest place of all to have 

 these things it never heard of. It was con- 



trary to nature —no, not contrary to nature, 

 but contrary to the nature of the little vill- 

 ager. 



The farmer is brought up to work ; the 

 little villager is the product of perfect idle- 

 ntss. 



A local society has a great and noble work. 

 If its members are faithful, it is possible to 

 materially change and improve many small 

 places. Our society has found much help 

 in the success of the many individual gardens 

 in this season just past. 



A. K. Goodman. 



The second open meeting of the Cayuga 

 Horticultural Society was a pronounced suc- 

 cess in all of its features. 



For recherche occasions like this the Court 

 Room if possible is secured, and there is no 

 orettier and statelier room within the county 

 for a public gathering of a semi-social charac- 

 ter such as this was. 



By a very simple arrangement the tables 

 of the Court Circle, the Clerk's and Judge's desks 

 made a perfect little platform with a background 

 of shelving rising tier on tier for the display of a 

 profusion of plants and flowers that was truly a 

 dream of beauty and loveliness. 



Begonias from tiant towering, gorgeous shruVs 

 five feet high crowded with a very wealth of bloom 

 down to the dainty two-branched littie beauties 

 carrying only a couple of balls of bloom These 

 flowers were the most in evidence and occupied 

 the highest and most prominent place in the floral 

 terrace. These were flanked on either side by 

 splendid palms, tall, sweepinc: graceful ones of the 

 grounded type, and a magnificent specimen of the 

 nicotine plant. 



Fig 2:94. Aster Hedgk at Cayuga. 



