ORNAMENTAL HORTICULTURE AT THE WORLD'S FAIR. 203 



Mrs. H. L. T. Wolcott said she was always glad to meet a man 

 who has the courage of his convictions, and finds fault. She had 

 done this for years, and believed in it. She had listened with 

 much interest to Mr. Stewart's criticisms, and she could not but 

 acknowledge them to be largely just. She thought the fact that 

 such criticisms were needed arose from the inertia of the people — 

 the tendenc}'^ of our own citizens, especially, to put off matters. 

 They think and say as of old : " O don't hurry, it won't be much 

 of a show" — those of old times said "shower" — and they do 

 nothiug until it is too late to work effectively. All preparations 

 for the Horticultural Section of the Great Exhibition should have 

 been commenced a year earlier. The plans for the Horticultural 

 Building should have been submitted to practical judges — prac- 

 tical horticulturists, rather than left to architects, whose special 

 interest was only to make an attractive structure, regardless of the 

 needs of the exhibits, of which they knew nothing. This knowl- 

 edge concerning plants was in possession of the exhibitors, and 

 should have been called for, and made the guide in designing 

 every part of that great building. 



The choice of Commissioners seemed to have been made with 

 political influence as the ruling principle ; consequently many of 

 them commenced their work without any experience in the lines 

 of duty assigned to them. This was especially conspicuous in the 

 Woman's Department. Most effective displays could not have a 

 place there, because the leaders, or those having authority, were in 

 absolute ignorance of their value. Another illustration was found 

 in the situation of our own State Building, which was an enlarged 

 reproduction of the old Hancock House, formerly so familiar to 

 many of us. That fine old mansion stood on an eminence, with 

 terraced banks of green between the house and the sidewalk on 

 Beacon street. But in Chicago, its site was on the dead level of 

 the prairie, and only a few inches higher than the grand avenue 

 before it ; then the training of vines upon its walls and the fence 

 had the effect of belittling its appearance, and dwarfing its grand 

 proportions. One New England state gave the sum of five 

 thousand dollars for its State Building. The owners of the 

 marble beds in that state, desiring to exhibit the fine varieties of 

 stone in their quarries, suggested to the Woman's Commission that 

 they would furnish a marble model of a Pompeian temple, and the 

 •offer was accepted. It was a most inappropriate edifice to 



