58 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1897. 



time I cannot help but express my gratification for the surprises that 

 I have had in being-here this evening. I have always liked an organ- 

 ization which brought the ladies in. I never belonged to any society 

 which was composed of gentlemen alone and I never want to. When 

 I meet with ladies I always feel that I am in safe company. I am glad 

 to be in the company where there are so many ladies who are inter- 

 ested in horticulture. There are ladies I know who are in sympathy 

 with our work. I feel proud that I am a horticulturist. While I live 

 over the line in the land of Canaan I can come here from home ; and 

 while I never visited Worcester, I see many faces that we have done 

 business with for years ; and I am proud to say that much of the fruit 

 in this country first came from the New Canaan nursery. We have 

 sent trees all over this State and you are receiving the benefit of our 

 labor ; it certainly is a promising business, it stands to the front. If 

 we could go back fifty years and see what our grandfathers had and 

 compare it with our business now, we would see a great contrast 

 between the fruit of the present time and that of the olden time, also 

 a difference iu the way in which our grandfathers and grandmothers 

 lived. When I look back and see my mother, who is now living and 

 is 93 years old and a mother of ten children, and see the old spinning- 

 wheel, she used to make our frocks and knit our stockings and then 

 make comfortables, I don't see how a woman in those days could 

 stand it; it is wonderful to me how they did it. Two years ago they 

 started a creamery in New Canaan and in a short time Mrs. Hoyt said, 

 " Let the cream go," and was glad to get it out of the house, and we 

 won't get it back. You ladies here in the city don't realize what we 

 farmers have to do. It was my good fortune two years ago to visit 

 California. It was pleasant to see the plants growing in mid-winter, 

 to see the fuchsia, calla and heliotrope iu that country ; but I tell you 

 when I got home I was glad I lived iu old Connecticut. There is no 

 place like New England ; there is no place where you can find such 

 advanced cultivation as in old New P^ngland. I am glad that I was 

 reared in New England. There are but few years that the President 

 and myself have to work iu this Society; fifty-five years now this 

 Society has lived, and fifty-five years from this time we may see as 

 much improvement in the horticultural line as we have seen in the 

 fifty years of our life. The brother has spoken of the land of 

 Canaan. Yes; " the land of Canaan" is a beautiful spot, especially 

 new Canaan. I am better acquainted with new Canaan than I am 

 with old. It is the land which flows with milk and honey. When I 

 made up my circulars I put on them for my trade-mark a tree with 



