HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES. 
503 
notion that they concern nobody but their 
own members, and that they can inform all 
those by letter, and therefore that any further 
publicity that would cost money would be 
a waste of the funds. Perhaps this is the 
strongest possible case that we .could select 
to justify the neglect or refusal to advertize. 
Let us consider whether even such a society 
as this is to be exempt from the charge of 
limiting the good they do by their parsi- 
monious and inconsiderate privacy. The pro- 
fessed object of all such societies is to promote 
the science, to engage men's leisure time in 
rational employment, to stir up their honest 
pride, and excite emulation ; and by example 
as well as precept to stimulate them to exer- 
tion in a quiet and delightful study which 
weans the mind from less healthful indulgences 
of the outer world. Now those who defend 
the propriety of doing all this in private, con- 
tent themselves with carrying out only one 
half their avowed objects, and only do a small 
portion of the good they might do by a little 
more expenditure. If it be good to en- 
courage these societies at all, the more socie- 
ties there are, the better it must be ; for it is 
quite certain, that if it improve the morals of 
the working and even middle classes to ensrase 
... o o 
their attention in the delightful pursuit of 
horticulture in one village, it must have the 
same tendency in another; and no one will 
dispute, that where Horticultural Societies 
are established it has a manifest and highly 
beneficial tendency. The people then of a 
village in the Isle of Man, of the colony of 
New Zealand, or at Hong Kong, may es- 
tablish a society and " do good by stealth," 
believing all the while that their business 
concerns nobody but themselves or their 
own members ; but they forget the force 
of example, — they do not consider how 
many localities would be stirred up to do 
the same, for very shame that with greater 
advantages about them they are doing no- 
thing. The fact ' of reading in a newspaper 
that in a certain remote place where they 
have to surmount all sorts of difficulties they 
have got up a Horticultural Society, may in- 
duce many who neglect so prolific a source of 
good to rouse their neighbours to " do like- 
wise ;" hence it is that we conclude that 
societies do only half the good they might do 
when they neglect to show the public what 
they are doing. It is not enough to do good 
anonymously; it is not enough to be virtuous 
in private. Nobody will dispute that the prin- 
cipal esquire in a village and all his family 
might pray at home, and practise all the vir- 
tues in secret, and that they might be in all 
respects unexceptionable ; but, will any body 
tell us that they will do one half the good that 
they would accomplish if they attended public 
worship, and set a good example to the rest; 
or that their private charity would do half 
the service that would be done by their head- 
ing a list of charitable neighbours, and by 
their open proceedings stimulating others to 
similar acts ? The thing is out of the ques- 
tion. We hate ostentation, but we also dis- 
approve of hiding a light under a bushel. Man 
is an imitative animal ; and the more good 
examples there are placed before him, the 
more likely he is to follow some, much to his 
own benefit and to the advantage of his neigh- 
bours. Nor do we care what motive first 
causes a man to follow a good example ; it 
may be pride, it may be envy, but by doing 
good actions frequently it may become habi- 
tual; and the very act which originated in 
pride or envy may be continued with a full 
sense of its importance. In Horticultural 
Societies the proceedings are fraught with 
good : the loose idler is led to healthful recre- 
ation ; the drunkard is insensibly led to an 
amusing occupation, and eveiybody engaged 
is improved in the knowledge and practice of 
gardening. That village, then, which has not 
its Horticultural Society, or which is not in 
connexion with such, loses a great means of 
improving the morals and habits of the inhabi- 
tants. Whatever can induce the wealthy classes 
to institute such means, does enormous good 
for society at large; and nobody need be told 
that nothing stimulates men so much as the 
knowledge that people less powerful, less in- 
fluential, are doing something that they, the 
more powerful and more influential, have not 
done. This fact alone has been frequently the 
cause of many a good institution, benevolent 
as well as scientific. The wounded pride of 
a man who hears another admired for some 
good action, will do much to stimulate even a 
bad man to outdo the good one in amount or 
in exertion. Upon these grounds we main- 
tain, that the very first duty of individuals 
and of societies whose example may be pro- 
fitably followed, is to place that example 
before the public in its best and most alluring 
form. 
Every Horticultural Society ought to con- 
sider, that, however much good they may do 
at home, they should publish their doings for 
the benefit of those in more neglected places. 
If there be but one active man in a particular 
locality, desirous of establishing a society, that 
mau's work is more than half done if he can 
point out to his neighbours that some less 
considerable place has one; so that if the 
managers of the most isolated society in the 
kingdom or the world mean to do good gene- 
rally, their very first duty is to publish its 
objects to the world, even if they knew that it 
would not produce a shilling return to the 
funds. And, if it be right to do so in such a 
