164 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1898. 



hens at the same time. In the innocent guilelessness of my 

 inexperience I reasoned in this wise, that the hens, if properly 

 treated and well instructed, would realize that they had certain 

 duties to perform and they would go through the garden and 

 yard and destroy all the worms and insects injurious to vegeta- 

 tion, but I found that the gray matter does not predominate in 

 the brain of the hen. Those hens of mine got all mixed up as 

 to their duties and seemed to think that they must destroy the 

 vegetation lest it might be harmful to the worms and insects. 

 I remember that I had one that I named " Maud" because she 

 was continually hearing an invitation to " come into the garden." 

 Then for her — 



" Stone walls did not a prison make, 

 Nor wire fences, a cage." 



But she answered the invitation. It is but just to myself to 

 say that my experience in gardening was extremely brief. 



I feel that it would be hardly proper in this presence to speak 

 without recounting to some extent what the world owes to the 

 horticulturist. On such occasions as this a society of this kind 

 has a right to feel a little proud and to boast of what has been 

 done in the past, and to hear good things said of itself. Why, 

 at the annual banquet of the Granite State Society we boast 

 without fear of contention that the garden of Eden was in New 

 Hampshire, and the serpent was unable to obtain the price of 

 admission. We then claim, and we have the authority of a 

 well-known horticulturist to back up the statement, that the 

 first land to rise above the water in the beginning of thinsfs was 

 the southeastern part of New Hampshire. It has been objected 

 by a doubting Thomas that this runs counter to Genesis when 

 it says that the Lord after he had created the land looked upon 

 it and pronounced it good, and no one could for a moment think 

 that that could apply to the land of southeastern New Hamp- 

 shire. Of course we made light of that objection. 



Now to come back to my point which is the service done for 

 mankind by the horticulturist. Some years ago I chanced to 

 study somewhat carefully the condition and manner of living of 



