26 Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society. 



This Society had its birth in Missouri, and it is but fitting that it 

 should have held its most successful meeting within her borders, 

 and as the guest of her State Society and its prosperous adjunct, the 

 Missouri Valley Horticultural Society. 



Delegates were in attendance from seventeen different States, and 

 the leading agricultural and horticultural journals of the country 

 had representatives at the meeting. 



First Day — Tuesday. 



Afternoon Session, January 22, 1884. 



At 2 o'clock on Tuesday, January 22, 1884, President Parker 

 Earle, of Cobden, Illinois, called the Sjciety to order in the taste- 

 fully arranged Philharmonic Hall, which had been provided for the 

 occasion by the Missouri Stite and t'le Missouri Valley Horticul- 

 tural Societies. 



L. A. Goodman, Secretary of the Missouri State Horticultural 

 Society, was appointed to assist the Secretary until the arrival of F. 

 R. Albertson, of Indiana, who had been selected by that official to 

 assist him during the meeting. 



Maj. J. C. Evans, of Missouri, Oliver Gibbs, Jr., of Minnesota, 

 and cx-Gdv. R. W. Furnas, of Nebraska, were appointed a com- 

 mittee on order of business. 



Pending the report of the Committee on Oi'der of Business, Sec- 

 retary Ragan, of Indiana, presented the following report: 



SECRETARY'S ANNUAL REPORT. 



Our good President has so comiilctely occupied the whole field by sugges- 

 tions and recoMimcndalious, in his most excellent address to be delivered in 

 your hearing, that it happily relieves me of all effort in this direction. 



I may be pardoned, however, for a few personal allusions to myself and 

 the work you have intrusted to my care during the year just closing. 



In assuming the very responsible and higldy lionorable position you so 

 generously conferred uj)on me at New Orleans, I realized, to the fullest ex- 

 tent, my unfitness for the place and your misUike in urging me into it. Once 

 accejtted, however, I fully determined to atone for my lack of ability in a 

 faithful comi)liance with the duties involved. 



