Addresses — Recreation in horticulture . 427 
who there live, and play, and grow, and learn, amiding surround¬ 
ings so salutary to the body and mind ! 
If it be objected that this union of country and city life is ex¬ 
pensive—a luxury only to be afforded by the rich—I emphati¬ 
cally deny the necessity of it. I know that it often is, but I say 
it need not be. Suburban life might easily with the proper man¬ 
agement, be made pecuniarily a self-sustaining pleasure. With 
from three to six acres of ground, near any city half the size of 
Madison, it would not be difficult, from the sale of fruit, to pay 
the salary of a permanent gardener, and the interest on the cost 
of the land, and thus to have free of expense a permanent para¬ 
dise of lawn and trees and fruit and healthful recreation. A 
pleasure thus self-sustaining would to most men be the more unal¬ 
loyed. In what may be termed practical horticulture, as opposed 
to ornamental, a cabbage head which the account book says has 
cost a dollar to grow cannot be contemplated by the producer 
with unmixed delight, nor will one’s strawberries be quite satis¬ 
factory if inexorable figures make them twice or thrice as costly 
as those of the market. 
Notwithstanding the wide circulation and popularity of such 
books as “ Ten Acres Enough,” “ Four Acres Enough,” etc., there 
is an impression in the common mind that they contain more 
poetry than truth—that such pictures as they present are snares 
and delusions. This impression has probably been strengthened 
by Mr. Warner’s delightful little book, u My Summer in a Garden,” 
and other kindred writings, in which there is a vein of infidelity in 
respect to the pleasures and profits of gardening. 
But it is with much confidence that I have made the statement 
above respecting the comparatively easy possibilities of practical 
horticulture. A pleasant experience of five summers in a garden 
has convinced me that there can be profits as well as delight in 
amateur horticulture. Aud it has also convinced me that horti- 
ticulture is worthy to rank with the higher professions. Great 
success in it requires cultivated and trained faculties exclusively 
devoted to the business. 
While my own success has been small compared with the pos¬ 
sibilities which I realize, and towards which I have been slowly 
advancing, yet that success has been encouraging. I have time to 
