President's Annual Address. 79 



THE RANGE OF SUBJECTS 



Which pi'operly come before ;i horticultural society is a very wide one. 

 Everything which relates to the garden, the orchard, and the forest comes 

 within our view. All of the arts of embellishment which apply to the 

 home, the park, or the roadside should get encouragement from us. All 

 private lawns, all public grounds, all school-house yards, all cottage windows, 

 should be the more beautiful for the existence of horticultural societies in 

 a country. Horticulturists have given no more important service to society 

 than in what they have done to beautify the homes, and thus to sweeten the 

 lives of the people. Regarding the usefulness of this work, there is no con- 

 troversy or lack of belief. But tliere is no branch of horticulture, the prin- 

 ciples, the laws, the difficulties, and the possibilities of which are so well 

 settled. There is little room left for discussion ; there is plenty for exhorta- 

 tion. But the daily life, and practice, and teaching of every horticulturist is a 

 perpetual exhortation to his neighbors. It is fortunate that the arts of rural 

 beauty win their own way easily with people in both town and country. 

 These sweet influences of trees, and grass, and flowers make their own 

 appeal to almost every nature. This is shown in the surprising expansion of 

 the business of our florists in all communities where life is settled into quiet 

 channels. 



But, when we come to consider those branches of our subject in which 

 most of us who establish and maintain horticultural societies, are immedi- 

 ately interested in a business way — the propagation of trees and plants, prac- 

 tical fruit growing, with its questions of handling and marketing, and the 

 planting and maintenance of forests, we enter a field full of diverse opinions, 

 full of unansw^ered questions, of disputed theories, of unsettled methods. It 

 is to bring harmony, so far as may be, out of this chaos of conflicting views, 

 and to shed as much light as we can borrow from scientific research upon 

 the darkness and ignorance which invest so many of these things, that the 

 main labor of horticultural societies must tend A few suggestions of a 

 practical nature relating to this subject will fulfill for me the duty of this 

 hour. 



THE BUSINESS OP HORTICULTURE, 



Aside from the refining, educational influences of it, produces annual value, 

 within the Mississippi Valley, amounting to, perhaps, $100,000,000. The com- 

 mercial importance of fruit-growing and gardening and the other horti- 

 cultural industries, has genjerally been much under estimated. In a certain 

 county of Illinois the wheat crop, which was the important staple, failed the 

 past season. To help meet expenses, the farmer gave especial attention to 

 drying their surplus fruit. The result was, as shown from the books of the 

 merchants and bankers of the county, that the total income from dried a])i)lcs 

 was greater than the ordinary proceeds of the wheat crop. The statciueut 

 was received with astonishment, for this is not a country where orcharding 

 had received much attention ; but the fact is an interesting illustration of 



