104 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895. 



to stand some slight chance of gathering the fruits of intelligent cul- 

 ture, is more vexation of spirit than the crop is worth. Take a 

 single case that has come within the writer's very limited acquaint- 

 ance in your city. A young couple set their hearts toward the 

 making of a home with a garden about it. A number of years of 

 hard work and careful saving brings in enough to begin with. A lot 

 on a fair hill on the, then, outskirts of Worcester is bought and a 

 little house built. Not a tree or shrub graces the place, but moon- 

 light nights, after work in the shop, you might see our friends plant- 

 ing trees together. While the gentry of elevated tastes are enjoying 

 their cigars and beer, our young Adam and Eve have covered their 

 little Eden with flowers ; have planted elms and Virginia creeper ; 

 maples, apples, pears, peaches and grape-vines ; and all roanner of 

 good things. As soon, however, afe the trees begin to bear, the 

 reversion of primitive tastes, which so strongly tends to bring all men 

 back to Eden, sets in and a running fight begins. Up to the present 

 this struggle has been going on for something over 50 years. 

 Patience, strength and years have failed, while the Goths and Van- 

 dals have increased like the plague. Between the street and each 

 apple tree the well-trimmed arbor-vita? hedge, of over 40 years' growth, 

 has been torn into ragged and unsightly holes and has been supple- 

 mented by a high barbed-wire fence. Finally, apple trees, thrifty, 

 sound and bearing, have had to be cut down for no other reason than 

 to give the dear old people a little peace of their lives. The pathos 

 of this series of incidents is to me too deep for adequate expression, 

 and would be intensified in the mind of all present did each know 

 the couple in question. There is about them no trace of the nervous 

 and stingy type of character which boys love to tense. They are 

 whole-souled, kindly people, and generous of their good things to a 

 fault. Other good people, less unselfish perhaps, but wiser in their 

 day and generation, when I have asked them why they do not plant 

 fruit trees, have told me that if they had fruit, their places would be 

 overrun with boys, and that they had rather buy or go without than 

 have the nuisance of either being overrun or keeping the vandals off. 

 What can this have to do with botanical gardens, do you ask? It 

 is the very root of the whole matter. It was Adam's fault that trans- 

 formed Eden into a patch of thorns and thistles, and to-day it lies 

 solely with man to choose whether he shall live in a garden paradise 

 or in a desert. Before we can have gardens, we must have men and 

 boys, who are educated to know their value and respect their rights. 

 To plant gardens before this state has been in some degree attained. 



