128 
TITE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
Three Wars and Their Sequel 
lleiul 1)1/ II. L. UUhnintycr, Le.rmgton, Ky., before the Meetuiy of (he Southern Xurseryinen's 
Association, Atlanta, (Georgia, August '29th and 30th, 1917. 
I T is Ili(' t('n(l(Mu*v and j)r()vin(*e of Iho old to live in the 
|)asl. that of the young in th(‘ i)r(‘S(‘nt and future. 
TIk' (>x|)ei'i(Miee of tlu' past is the lamp that lights the 
fidui‘(' to th(‘ one. To the other tin' ho|)e and |)urpose 
of today is guidcal only hy the dim lode star, darkly seen 
through the gloom of that futuia'. 
In th(' heginning. may this bit of personal history he 
interj('eled that you may know why I have been assigned 
the suhjeet "Thn'e Wars and Their Seciuel.” 
One hundred and fifty years ago, save one, in that 
matehless valley between the Alj)s and Vosges, watered 
hy the Hhine. was established a modest nursery. It 
])rospered and expanded, as all effort dlreeted hy am¬ 
bition, know h'dge and honest zeal will i)rosper, and in 
time eame to he the largest in eastern France. 
Later eame the French Kevoliition and its saturnalia 
of hoi'ror. It was the pent but maddening plea of the 
masses that man be fn'cd. Rut the (nirly ambition of 
that young Oorsiean, that guided its purpose, was de¬ 
bauched to his owni aggrandizement. Nations are ever 
hero worshi])pers. His followed him with the same 
blind fatuity that today is laying waste, with wanton 
destruction, under the direction of another mind, those 
same fair fields. 
When the hope of that uidiallowed ambition forever 
w ent dow n in the defeat at Waterloo, the w reck of that 
nursery, wrought by the ])assing of contending armies 
was as the devastation of this fair section of the South¬ 
land, in that later devastating march to the sea. 
When the dove of peace again brooded over that land, 
and this, their sons, poor in material wealth, but rich in 
the priceless heritage of undaunted manhood, either re- 
builded their fortunes above their smoking ruins, or con¬ 
cealed their poverty among strangers, rather than remain 
among those w ho had know n them in their prosperity. 
It was for this reason that after the first great conflict 
on that side, every quarter of the globe was enriched by 
the exodus of the impoverished but imperishable flower 
of its young maidiood. 
After the second, all this fair Southland sent from its 
rent bosom so many uneomjuered sons, later to do it 
honor in every part of the union or where their fortunes 
were east. In this eojiiieetion, I shall jiot advert to the 
Franco-Prussian war of 1870, further than to say that 
the fate that has now' befallen Belgium, was then miti¬ 
gated in Alsaee-Loraine oidy in degi-ee, and as effecting 
its fruit and nursery interests, yet here again, was a 
glorious resurrection. 
And now' the third, and let us hoj)e last. Armageddon 
Ijroods over the face of earth and s(‘a. continued and sus¬ 
tained by the hallowed purpose, that all men be free in 
the enjoyment of that liberty, without fear, that is the 
divine Inherency of weak and strong alike. These are 
the facts of history, and passing from the analogies of 
tw o w ars, w e may w ith safely forecast the sequence of 
the third. Their followings atreet('d every industrial 
and productive j)ur|)ose. but its influence on our partic¬ 
ular art is the theuK' of present consideration. 
War is ever immediaUdy destructive, but always re¬ 
motely construelive. through the stress of those necessi¬ 
ties that follow' in its wake. The wars that embroiled 
continental and insular Euroj)e in the first quarter of the 
last eenlury, dej)leted her inanhood, disrupted her indus¬ 
trial system, exhausted her eoneentrated food stuffs, en¬ 
forced changed methods of human sustenance, and 
brought men more closely to dependence on the imme¬ 
diate givings of the earth. 
While twice such besom of destruction had sw'e{)t 
aside interests just such as ours now, phoenix like they 
arose from their ashes, greater in their w ider field of op- 
Iiortunity, because of the changed conditions and needs 
of the people among w horn they were located. 
When nearly three score years ago a similar blight fell 
on (leorgia’s plains, and all the sunny Southland, your 
nursery and fruit interests were then negligible. You 
had been nurtured in the lap of luxury and abundance. 
Your soil w as so teeming in its [lossibilities, so rich in its 
money yielding harvests, and your opportunities of ob¬ 
taining elsewhere, all that you coveted, so ample, that 
your capacity of self sustenance in other ways w'as en¬ 
tirely overlooked. 
With your labor system shattered, your immediate re¬ 
sources dissipated, your inqiorts cut off, your currency 
debased, and gaunt want stalking a grim sjiector through 
your land, your immediate and only resource w'as to re¬ 
turn to nature, and seek from her bountiful bosom the 
only relief possible for the time being. It w'as through 
the stress ot scarcity and high prices that then prevailed 
that your agriculture received an immediate and con¬ 
tinued impulse that has added inestimably to your civic 
wealth. 
You need not be reminded that your nursery interests, 
of wdiich you are now' the proud representative, more 
than any other form of soil culture was amazingly de¬ 
veloped, greatly prospering not only those therein en¬ 
gaged but more especially those that availed themselves 
of your otT(‘rings. 
The develo])m('nt of the nursery and fruit industry of 
both south and north, received a greater impetus in one 
generation after the Civil War than in all time before it. 
Memory reaches clearly to conditions l)efore that w^ar. 
There were no eommereial plantings. We lived happily 
in a land of plenty, where every land ow ner had a vine 
and j)eaeh tree, but the city dweller enjoyed only the 
cast-a-way from the bounty of Dives, because his needs 
w ere hardly in the purview' of either nurseryman or fruit¬ 
grower, and both were there few'. 
The sorer want that I lien pinched the southern states 
laid likewise its grip upon their borders. There was not 
