226 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the body politic. Our knowledge of current events, of men, and of 

 character, we do not get from schools, but from the press. Even our 

 knowledge of countries and places is gleaned more from the papers of 

 the day than from the musty geographies of our boyhood which 

 placed what is now the fertile state in which we live upon the map as 

 the " Great American Desert." 



This is not the only myth of the past which the press has banished. 

 The progress in agriculture is quite largely due to that potent power, 

 although the agriculturists, with their kindred pursuits, are most 

 negligent in reading and practicing the lore of the press devoted to 

 their interests. Yet, I fancy, that while the horticulturist has been 

 planting and hybridizing and grafting, developing and experimenting, 

 the agricultural press has been his most efficient ally in giving the 

 results of his labors to the world, and not only this, but the demand 

 for your labors is largely created by the same press, which ever seeks 

 to introduce everything which will tend to better the condition of the 

 farmer. 



I realize fully the importance of your chosen field of labor. The 

 treeless prairies of Nebraska must be clad in living green by your 

 hands, and the fruitless farms must be made to bring forth the " vine 

 and fig tree." Yet the only way the farmer can be led to properly 

 appreciate the value of such development to him, is by constant educa- 

 tion and having his attention called to it often by a disinterested 

 medium, for lie is apt to think you urge this upon him because you 

 are in the business. Such a medium of education can be found only 

 in the agricultural press, which goes before and prepares the way of 

 the horticulturist. 



In the furtherance of this work the press needs the co-operation of 

 the horticulturists, singly and in a body. Items of information which 

 continually arise from your labors should be given to the people, and 

 thus a continual interest be kept up in your work. The publisher in 

 the hurry and rush of his business can scarcely spare time to recall 

 the days when he, too, was an enthusiastic investigator and gave the 

 knowledge thus acquired to an admiring world as the result of his in- 

 vestigation. True enough such investigations were of great interest 

 to him, and it was a time of ceaseless activity when on the way home 

 from school he and his congenial chains crept through the hedge, or 

 scaled the lofty picket fence to find the ripe peaches and bear them 



