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WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
HORTICULTURE FOR FARMERS. 
(From a Paper read before the Wisconsin State Horticultural Society.) 
BY J. S. STICKNEY, WAUWATOSA. 
When the love of good fruit is so general, why is it not 
more abundant? When the value of trees for ornament, shade 
and timber is so apparent, why do we not plant more and care 
for them better ? When beautiful flowers add so much to the 
innocent pleasure and happiness of our homes, why is there a 
home without them ? There must be reasons and also reme¬ 
dies for these failures. To learn the one and apply the other 
is worth our honest efforts. True our climate is not all we 
could wish it to be, but complaints from us will be in better 
taste after we have fully accomplished all that our climate fav¬ 
ors. True our nurserymen and horticulturists, and our State 
Horticultural Society might have done more to encourage and 
direct us, but we must remember that they have had many ob¬ 
stacles to overcome, and as all give evidence of now being alive 
and in earnest, let us assist with equal zeal. Without further 
considering these outside influences, let us look directly at 
home, holding ourselves responsible for whatever is less than 
it should be. A brief review of our short comings, if not ex¬ 
actly pleasant, may help us to make better progress hereafter. 
Let us who have lived ten years in our present homes consider 
what those ten years should have enabled us to do, with the 
best use of means actually within our reach. The seeds of 
that bushel of apples which we bought and used ten years ago, 
if planted and cared for, should now be represented by ten acres 
of bearing orchard, whose fruit in favorable seasons, should 
bring one thousand dollars. Is there such an item in our farm 
account? If not, we have lost something by neglect. If our 
farms lack timber or shelter, one bushel of black walnuts, to 
be gathered in an hour, or bought for a dollar, would, with prop- 
