Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1877-10-31
What Interests People.

The report of the Maine Pathological So
ciety for 1851, speaking of flower and
fruit shows, says The object of an exhi-
biton is to draw together the people, and
by the beauty and variety there displayed,
educate them to a higher appreciation OF
the importance of horticulture, and awaken
in them an enthusiasm that will spur them
on to greater and more successful efforts to
secure for themselves surroundings of beauty
and utility, that the standard of their lives
may be elevated, and life itself made more
pleasant and useful. But in order to reach
these results, the people must attend the ex-
hibitions. Human tastes and aspirations
are such,-and we must take these things
as they are,-that anything of purely ele-
waiting tendency, which does not appeal in
any way to our lower natures, does not at
tract the great masses of the people. The
nonsense of corps of negro minstrels draws
fuller houses than the purest rendering of the
productions of the great masters of music.
A circus, with the foolishness of noted
clown, will be crowded while art galleries
are empty. A stump speaker who can tell
a common place story in an off-hand, attrac-
tive manner will chain an audience when
the greatest scholarship and highest culture
will simply empty the seats. So an exhibit
ton of fruit and flowers, charming in its
beauty and variety, will have few visitors
while horse-trot will draw together its
shouting thousands. Yet an exhibition can
not be run without receipts, and exerts but
little influence without visitors"
Mrs. Moloy, in her interesting letters de-
scriptive of her Canadian trip, speaks very
disparagingy of the dog and poultry show
associated with the fruit and flower exhibit
ton of the Montreal Horticultural Society.
We confess to have fully shared her feelings
in this respect when we entered the beaiti-
fully decorated lower hall, with its wealth
of rare plants, gorgeous flowers and beautiful
fruits, only to be deafened by the yelping of a
thousand dogs and the growing of innumer-
able cocks in the upper galleries. And the
scent of the CANNES utterly nulified the
fragrance of the flowers.
But when we read that the equally good
exhibition of the Maine society, without any
side-shows,' never at any time during the
three days it was open had over twenty
visitors at once, while the Montreal exhibit
tion was crowded, we are compelled to
recognize that there are two sides to the
question.
The fact is, it requires education to de-
velop taste for the refined and the beau
tiful in nature and art. Any candid,
| thoughtful person, with cultivated tastes,
will recall the course of his or her culture,
and will remember the time when what now
deeply interests the mind and feelings made
little or no impression upon them In the
fine arts this is peculiarly true, but hardly
less so in horticulture and pomology. What
is fruit and flower show to the uninstructed
but simple appeal to the senses in gross, a
display of things good to eat and pretty to
look at but no more interesting than walk
| through the market-house. But to the
trained expert, or the ardent student, every
plate of fruit, every plant exhibited, is an
| object of interest," greater or less according
to knowledge already in store and the special
taste of the observer. Instead of not think
ing it worth quarter" (Which is the rea.
son these shows are so little attractive to
the masses,) the fruit-fancier and flower.
lover wishes for days of uninterrupted leis-
ure to study the treasures around him. The
ordinary observer is simply tempted to eat
the fruit and smell or pick the flowers.
As "faith comes by hearing" so taste
for intellectual and refined pleasures comes
by learning and study. They are not, ex.
cept in their germs, native to the soul
though an aptitude for them may be in.
herted, so that culture becomes easier to
succeeding generations.
There is no doubt that this culture is ex
tending in New England, and nowhere, in
our judgment, more rapidly than among the
farmers. Already they demand the agricul
tural fair without the horse trot, and though
the bulk of the male attendance will moi
much notice flowers and fruit, they will
study pumpkins, beans, corn, wheat and
oats, calves, pigs, cows, sheep and horses
with deep interest, BECAUSE to greater oil
less extent, they are familiar with such OBJ
ects, and therefore interested in them. A
few are familiar with fruits and inteligently
interested in them, and the women give ever
closer attention to the flowers than to the
tides and bedquits.
Culture is progressive it "grows by what
it feeds upon" The New England farmer
is becoming more and more a reading man
books, magazines and papers are becoming
more and more the necessaries of life to hin
and his family. But as yet culture has moi
generally reached the height, in rura
community, which will ensure the success o.
An Horticultural show by itself, and even il
cities dogs and chickens must be called il
TO help Boston is the only city in America
that has yet been able to make flowers anC
fruit by themselves the subjects OF pecuni
arily successful exhibition. We advise that
for time at least, genealogical societie
join their exhibits to the agricultural fairs
1t is an alliance that will help still NOR
effectually to drive out the "agricultura
boss trot."