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ter which, if fully utilized, would make Norfolk County the 

 garden of the world ; you throw away, in fact, what would 

 make this County and every other county fruitful, and you die 

 and pay for it. We shut our eyes to all this, yet they will in 

 time have to be opened, and opened, perhaps, in the sternest 

 wa}^ In giving your premiums, also, you should look more to 

 what will develope the general agricultural interests of the 

 County rather than simply the development of special crops. 

 On this question we must deal with things in the mass. 



There is another side to the question — its esthetic side. I 

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

 beauty of flowers. Within 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 

 green-houses. 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 only is 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 left undone ! When you look up to your Blue 

 Hill or go to its top, or go to Wachusett, and gaze below, 

 you see a landscape that is unsurpassed anywhere in natural 



