1898.] ANNUAL REUNION. 149 



best results. It has contributed the essentials of good and 

 wholesome living, both to those who cultivate the soil and to 

 those who consume the products of horticulture, and it is con- 

 tributing its full share to the amenities of life ; its scope broadens 

 with the advance of each season ; new fruits, new fiowers and 

 new vegetables are brought out, new shrubs and plants are 

 introduced, new trees, both deciduous and coniferous, are freely 

 planted in parks and private grounds, each and all contributing 

 its full share in the aggregate to the higher and finer art of horti- 

 culture. 



We may also congratulate ourselves that our lives were cast 

 in pleasant places, and within this our goodly heritage we can 

 appreciate the advantages we derive from the object lessons of 

 our exhibitions, and the education and refinement derived from 

 the essays and discussions at the sessions of the winter meetings. 



Every tree, whose leafy boughs catch the morning light and 

 waves its graceful head with every breeze, is a practical work of 

 horticulture ; and every flower that opens its tiny bud to drink 

 the dew of the morning, — each forms a part of the wondrous 

 work, where nature is assisted by man. 



With grateful memory we recall all who have contributed by 

 their wealth, their wisdom, their untiring devotion and enter- 

 prise in building the Society up to its present standing among 

 similar societies of the country. If we have nurtured the 

 important work of disseminating information on the higher art 

 and pursuit of horticulture, our labors have not been in vain. 

 If we succeed in awakening an interest or the latent love of the 

 cultivation of fruits and flowers and implanting it in the minds 

 of the young who are to become our successors, we may feel 

 that we contribute to horticulture, the most pleasing of all arts, 

 and have fully kept pace with the rapid progress of the age. 



When the returning season fills us anew with its promised 

 hopes we again renew the seed planting in the garden soil. 

 Nourished by sunshine and showers they soon send forth the 

 germ of life with a vital energy. It starts into being with all 

 their varying aspects. Such experience fully illustrates the lines 

 of Wordsworth — 



