STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 103 



Their way, while on the toiler's weary brow 

 Sweet rest and peace we find are resting now. 

 The young are sure to find in Flora a glad friend ; 

 For youth and purity most happy are to blend. 

 She comes to them a messenger of love; 

 And future life will full of beauty prove. 



As time moves on with its resistless tide, 

 A change is seen along the country-side. 

 The husbandman no longer, as of yore. 

 To flocks alone looks for increase of store. 

 Although his herds and fields of waving grain 

 Their proper rank in the year's round maintain, 

 New occupations of congenial kind 

 Now interest and occupy his mind. 

 The lone fruit-tree that in the corner stands 

 No longer suflers from neglectful hands, 

 But, pruned and fertilized, it yearly pours 

 Into his lap its most abundant stores. 

 We look around; upon the hill-side steep 

 And meadows broad, with soil both rich and deep. 

 Are planted fruit trees of the choicest kind, 

 Whose slender branches waving in the wind. 

 Bear fruit that in the beauty of rich colors vie 

 With brightest rainbow tints in summer sky. 

 We wander now within the garden's bound 

 Wherein fruitage of choicer kind is found. 

 Here shrub and plant and every useful vine 

 To add unto his treasures rich combine, 

 And pleasure, health, and recreation rare 

 Are found in training slender tendrils there. 



As we approach the farmer's lovely home, 

 Into a world of beauty we have come. 

 For flowers reflecting Eden's purest rays 

 On every hand meet our enraptured gaze, 

 And looking upward to the heavens above 

 Teach us the lessons of purit}^ and love. 

 And now the cheerful voice of song is heard 

 As sweet and clear as song of woodland bird, 

 When showers of spring come floating on the breeze 

 Or summer's sun makes glad their melodies. 

 This home a type of others in our land 

 We enter at the housewife's kind command. 

 The matron's brow may show some signs of care. 

 And marks of toil perchance are resting there. 

 Yet by the love that shines forth from her eye 

 We know her heart is filled with melody. 



