32 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. 



tastes of a large class, whose only knowledge of them is 

 derived from such sources. The traveler may now look 

 in vain for the distinctive evidences of a primitive condi- 

 tion of social life. He will scarcely find even a log house, 

 and nothing in the dress or appearance of the inhabitants 

 or the furnishing of their dwellings will strike him as 

 essentially different from what he has been accustomed 

 to in the older settlements. Towns no longer grow up 

 imperceptibly and apparently by accident, but are created 

 as it were in a day, the population and material being 

 furnished to order and delivered by rail at any given 

 point, where they fall into place and assume their respec- 

 tive duties with almost the precision of military organ- 

 ization. 



A striking illustration of the rapid conversion of ihe 

 wilderness to an advanced condition of cultivation was 

 exhibited at the last meeting of the National Pomological 

 Society. It seems but yesterday that the convention was 

 held in New York, at which that society was first estab- 

 lished, and many of those who took part on that occasion 

 are still numbered among its active members. At that 

 time Nebraska was only thought of as a part of the great 

 American desert, which was supposed to be incapable of 

 cultivation, and within whose limits it was hardly safe 

 for civilized men to enter except in armed caravans or 

 under military protection ; yet at the last meeting of the 

 Pomological Society the prize for the largest and finest 

 collection of fruit was awarded to Nebraska! 



The change has been so rapid and so great that it 

 cannot be fully realized except by those who can recall 



