36 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1900. 



that kind, just put in there under one eorner of the fence where 

 it would harbor and give protection to insects and other evil and 

 noxious things. It would have been a disgrace, that door-yard, 

 even to the hut of a savage. And this is not an isolated in- 

 stance, is not an isolated condition of things. 



Many and many a counterpart of that door-yard have I seen 

 while I have journeyed over this continent, but I think this Hor- 

 ticultural Society will, some day, make such barbarism, at least, 

 impossible in this land. For that reason, every village improve- 

 ment society that asks me to come and give them a talk finds a 

 ready and ever- willing response from me. I believe they are 

 doing a great deal of good by helping to make New England 

 cities creditable to the people who live in them. Why, I have 

 the transformation of a village in my mind, wrought out by 

 means of one of the village improvement societies. There were 

 fences that separated each house from every other one through- 

 out the village (and wherever you find fences of that kind, you 

 will find with it collections of rubbish or stone, or other things 

 thrown all about — anywhere just to put them out of people's 

 way), and when the Village Improvement Society went to work 

 and persuaded people to take the fences down and make their 

 lawns level and then keep them green, and to make flower-beds, 

 they were like jewels shining upon the breasts of the houses as 

 they stood there fronting the world. 



Altogether, there has been a great change wrought ; not 

 merely in the houses themselves, but throughout all the immedi- 

 ate country-side. Just as soon as a person has a well-kept 

 garden, other things must follow. The sidewalks must -be well 

 ordered, roads must be well kept up, and, whether you know it 

 or not, there is a demand for harmony, as one of the essential 

 conditions of the comfortable home. I believe it is the echo of 

 the rhythm of harmony that runs all through the universe. 

 God is sounding "Older!" into the souls of men. If you will 

 listen you will hear His voice. 



I wish that in every village in this and all other States, or- 

 ganizations of this kind were in existence, having officers of the 

 character of those I have met here today with so much pleasure 



