PROGRESS IN TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 43 



have only to look about me to see that you appreciate the 

 beauty of flowers. AVithin a few years past the farmers have 

 developed many out-door plants which it would have been 

 thought impossible to raise twenty-five years ago, except in 

 greenhouses. We find flowers everywhere, for nature loves 

 beauty. We ought to do everything which will tend to en- 

 courage the people to appreciate the beautiful, and in flori- 

 culture many can find a most congenial as well as profitable 

 vocation. It is only a very short time since, that when peo- 

 ple talked about beautifying a country place, men turned 

 aside with a sneer and asked, "What is it all worth?" The 

 worth of beauty, let me reply, no man can tell. The birds 

 and flowers and many other objects of nature which we see 

 around us, have beauty developed in a most extraordinary 

 degree in color and form, and all these things teach us that 

 what is worth doing at all is worth doing well. You have, to 

 be sure, your public parks and streets planted with trees, but 

 how little in the way of natural adornment has been done as 

 yet, and how much has been loft undone ! 



Let me now go back once more to the old agricultural 

 question. It is hardly possible for us to realize the improve- 

 ments which are in store for us during the next quarter cen- 

 tury. If agriculture has grown to such great proportions 

 during the last twenty-five years, and horticulture has become 

 what it has, then it is reasonable to suppose that many won- 

 derful improvements are still in store for us. When we see 

 the farmers riifht around us with their horse-rakes and other 

 modern appliances, we are apt to think that about all has 

 been done that can be done ; that we have about reached the 

 limits of agricultural machinery ; but this is not so. One in- 

 genious man has made a machine, which, I believe, is des- 

 tined to thoroughly revolutionize agriculture — to make as 

 vast an improvement as is seen in improving the breeds of 

 cows from the old grade of $20 to the modern-blooded ani- 

 mal of $40,000. Those who have seen the Wilkinson steam- 

 plough, to which I refer, — an engine with a wheel like the foot 

 of an elephant ; which can carry ten wagons loaded with men, 

 and will accomplish a vast amount of work in a very short 

 time, — will understand the worth of this new agency. I have 

 seen this machine hitched up and running ten ploughs. It 



