ANNUAL MEETING—1868. 551 
clusters to stone and thus preserve their beauty, I should have done so with¬ 
out a moment’s hesitation. 
I do not believe at all, that men have left the farm because they are educa- 
ted. They have left it because it has too often been carried on without the 
refinements of life which naturally belong to it, and which every man natu¬ 
rally desires. They have also left it,^ because so few men have been fully edu¬ 
cated, that their services have been demanded in other pursuits. We want 
to have more men educated, and we want to see farming carried on as it 
should be and then we believe there will be no antagonism between educa¬ 
tion and farming. If any farmer will send his son to the University with 
the purpose of giving him a thorough education and then to take him back 
upon the farm again, we will warrant him that his son shall return to him 
loving the farm as well as when he left it, to say the least. But if he tells 
him he can go only two or three terms, because he is to be a farmer, then the 
son will most likely hate the farm, which robs him of the advantages which 
he sees the sons of other men enjoying. Or, if the farmer sends his son to 
the University, as is generally done by most farmers, who send their sons to 
college, having instilled into his mind that farming is a low and hard busi¬ 
ness, and that he is sent to college that he may make somefliing else his 
business, so that mother and sisters, and all the neighbors expect that John 
is to be a minister, or doctor, or lawyer, then it will probably take more than 
one University, Agricultural College and all, to make a farmer of that boy. 
And if he should have the good sense to return to the old homestead, do you 
not think that father, mother, sisters and neighbors would think that John 
wai not very smart Ifterall, and that his college education was thrown away ? 
The fault is not half so much in the college as it is in the farm and in the 
farmer’s home. I should be glad just here to appeal to the Senior Class of 
the Wisconsin University. I believe not one of that class intends to be a 
farmer. But I should like to ask them the question if they do not have a 
higher opinion of farming, as an occupation, than they had a year ago—if they 
could not now go on to a farm with more comfort and satisfaction than they 
could then, and if they are not more likely to become farmers than they 
would have been without the instruction they have received ? I believe 
every one of them would answer, yes. I contend that there is nothing an¬ 
tagonistic to farming, even in the College of Letters. 
You can readily see from the view thus expressed what I think Horticul¬ 
ture is to do for Agriculture. It is not only to give us flowers in abundance, 
apples, peaches, grapes and other fruits; it is to adorn the farm, and give 
sources of enjoyment not possible from simple Agriculture. And we must 
join beauty with utility wherever we can. What act can a man perform 
more wonderful than to change dull clods into the petals and sweet odors of 
flowers, or into the apple or pear with their net work of cells filled with 
nectar ? As a simple experiment it would be worth the trying, every year. 
But when we add to this the health and strength, and enjoyment which the 
fruits give, we have in Horticulture an employment worthy of the best man. 
