Association in Horticulture. lOT 



States, not in farm orchards only, but even in those planted for commercial 

 purposes, been pointed to a row or a block of trees, planted perhaps with 

 little care or thought as to the variety, with the remark that these have 

 l^roved more profitable than perhaps ten times their number taken anywhere 

 else in the orchard. 



Again it is not altogether unusual to see a farm orchard apparently 

 grudged the space it occupies ; and the ground taxed with the production 

 of farm crops, in addition to the orchard crop, till, by a process of starvation^ 

 the latter becomes as really valueless as it is esteemed to be by its owner. 



Some years since the Horticultural Society of Michigan, while doing 

 pioneer work about the State, discovered that, while its meetings were well 

 attended, and while much interest was manifested during their continuance,, 

 it remained almost without recognized membership, while the apparent 

 good resulting from its meetings seemed, in a considerable degree, ineffect- 

 ive and evanescent. Much thought was given to the matter, ultimating in a 

 plan for the organization of a system of auxiliary local societies, reporting 

 periodically to the parent society, and entitled to all the advantages of such 

 membership; while, upon invitation, the periodical meetings of the parent 

 society are held with one or another of these auxiliaries, and, in so doing, are 

 made to serve a valuable purpose, in the increase of their efficiency and the' 

 extension of their membership. 



The results of this arrangement have, so far, proved highly satisfactory, 

 although experience develops occasion for still farther improvement. Some 

 system of occasional or, perhaps, even periodical visitation, or other equiva- 

 lent process, seems needful as a means of maintaining and even increasing 

 the efficiency of these auxiliaries, as well as of inaugurating others, espe- 

 cially in localities in which may be found the needful material, but lacking 

 the innate, self-leavening stimulus. 



Such increase of numbers and efficiency is the more essential, since the 

 parent society looks to these avixiliaries for the collection of the needful in- 

 formation to be employed in the revision of its catalogue of fruits, as well as 

 for much of that collated in its annual volume of transactions. 



We are happy to know that in many other States equivalent and, perhaps, 

 even more effective associational eflforts are in progress looking to equivalent 

 results. 



The recently inaugurated and apparently popular effort of the American 

 Pomological Society, looking to the simplification as well as purification of 

 the nomenclature of fruits, seems likely to prove an important as well as a 

 beneficent result of associational influence, since the contemplated change, 

 should it become general, would not only very essentially simplify and pu- 

 rify our pomological literature, so far as the past is concerned ; but, as we 

 anticipate, also strike at the root of vicious practice in the future, by the sub- 

 sequent avoidance, in the naming of new introductions, of vulgar and re- 

 dundant names, which in so many cases have proved the occasion for the 

 popular custom of cutting oft' such redundancy, or for the employment of 

 local synonyms. 



