MISCELLANEOUS ADDRESSES. 
RECREATION IN HORTICULTURE. 
BY HON. ED. SEARING, STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 
[Read before State Horticultural Society, February, 1374.] 
Happy is the man who finds delight in external nature, who 
sees and is moved by beauty in trees and fields, in brooks and 
clouds. He is happy, for the sources of his enjoyment are easily 
and abundantly at bis service. Nature gives him perpetual and 
ever varying pleasure. As man is placed amid such endless variety 
of natural objects, adapted to give him pleasure and instruction? 
every principle of self advantage should lead him to the cultiva¬ 
tion of his powers of observation and appreciation of what is 
about him. The eye that catches not beauty and inspiration from 
the external world is like that which is unable to get wisdom or 
delight from the printed pages of books. It is equally man’s 
duty and privilege to cultivate his perceptions so that he may ob¬ 
tain the utmost good from the printed records of other’s thoughts, 
and the unconventional creations of nature around him. 
Yet the beauties of the external world are largely unseen and 
unstudied by the majority of our people. The farmers who live 
in the midst of rural scenes are either too much uncultured or too 
much occupied with severe labor to appreciate and use what is 
about them. Professional and business men are too exclusively 
given up “ to addition to themselves and substraction from their 
neighbors,” to find time for the enjoyment of aught else, and are 
moreover largely shut up in cities and towns whence they get 
only occasional and hasty glimpses of country scenes. 
I plead to-night for a larger liberty for both classes. Man shall 
