54 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1896. 



thousand trees. Those first planted, some fifteen years ago, have 

 ah-eady acquired suflScient size to afford a most acceptable shade, as 

 well as marking a great improvement in the appearance of our 

 highways. 



I must confess that my attachment to these trees has become almost 

 a passion, and their injury or destruction, from any cause whatever, 

 touches with sadness the finest sensibilities of my nature ; and I must 

 still further confess that in all the varied activities which constitute 

 my life's work there is nothing in which I take greater pride and com- 

 fort than in watching the rapid growth of the trees and the develop- 

 ment of beautifully shaded streets in my own city, in the work of 

 which it has been my privilege so largely to share. 



What then is the effect of this work upon our lives and that of 

 others? Hon. B. G. Northrup of Connecticut has well answered this 

 question in these words, — ' ' The hope of America is the homes of 

 America. It has long been my ambition to improve the homes and 

 the home-life of our industrial classes, and help them to realize that 

 the highest privilege and central flut}' of life is the creation of happy 

 iiomes, for the home is the chief school of virtue, the fountain-head of 

 individual and national strength and prosperity. It is a worthy am- 

 bition to surround one's home and children with such scenes and influ- 

 ences as shall make the every-day life and labors brighter and hap- 

 pier, and help one to go sunny and singing to his work. Our youth 

 should early share in such efforts for adorning the surroundings of 

 their homes and planting trees by the wayside." 



Said Oliver Wendell Holmes in a letter, "I have written many 

 verses, but the best poems I have produced are the trees I have 

 planted on the hillside which overlooks the sinuous Housatonic." 



Said Washington Irving, ' ' There is something nobly simple and pure 

 in a taste for the cultivation of forest trees. It argues, I think, a 

 sweet and generous nature to have this strong relish for the beauties of 

 the forest. There is a grandeur of thought connected with this part of 

 rural economy. It is, if I may be allowed the figure, the heroic line 

 of husbandry. It is worthy of liberal and free-born and aspiring 

 men." 



In closing I can think of nothing more appropriate than to make use 

 of a few verses from one of Whittier's poems : — 



" 0, Painter of the fruits and flowers, 

 "We thanlv thee for thy wise design 

 Whereby these human hands of ours 

 In Nature's garden work with thine. 



