16 Mississippi Valleij Horticultural Society. 



A resolution, cinbodyiiig the idea.s of 8uch an organization as we have here 

 to-day, was adopted unanimously, and I had the honor to be appointed chair- 

 man of a committee to go to St. Louis and confer with the Missouri State 

 Horticultural Society at its next annual meeting. 



That society met in St. Louis on December 20, 1879, and our committee 

 attended the meeting and presented its plans. The proposition met an al- 

 most enthusiastic indorsement. It was also our good fortune to meet Mr. 

 Earle, then President of the Illinois State Horticultural Society, now our 

 honored President, who thought he could pledge the fruit growers of Illi- 

 nois to sustain the movement. There and then an executive committee of 

 nine was appointed, three from Arkansas, three from Missouri- and three 

 from Illinois, with power to carry out the programme. That commit- 

 tee waited upon the Merchants' Exchange of the city of St. Louis, and se- 

 cured the promise of i?.'],(KK) as a premium fund. With this backing we went 

 to work in earnest, and in the following September the finest and most com- 

 prehensive exhibition of fruit ever held in America was made for four days,. 

 in the Merchants' Exchange building, in St. Louis. Twenty-two States were 

 represented at that first meeting, and seventeen entered the organization 

 you have here to-day. 



Thus, ladies and gentlemen, yf)U have the origin of the Mississippi Valley 

 Horticultural Society, than which, in my humble opinion, none more impor- 

 tant exists on this continent. Three short years embraces its history up to- 

 this meeting in New Orleans. The second meeting was held in 1881, in con- 

 nection with the Exposition held in Cincinnati, and in 1882 the third meet- 

 ing was held in Chicago, but on account of the failure of the Chicago Fair 

 Association to hold an exhibition, the programme planned the year previous 

 in Cincinnati was not carried out, and to some extent was a disappointment 

 to the Society. 



Now, ray fellow-countrymen and co-laborers, I have given the origin and 

 history of our Society, and it makes my heart swell with joy and pride to see 

 to what limits it has grown, to see so many of the men who are the vigor,, 

 the life, yea the bulwarks of horticulture in our country, assembled here, to 

 mingle together and talk over such subjects as may redound to the good of 

 all mankind. In the past few years the strides made in horticultural pur- 

 suits have been rapid and steady, and to-day horticulture occupies a position, 

 in point of scientific development, in the very front of all other branches of 

 agriculture, whilst commercially it is rapidly becoming one of tlie chief ele- 

 ments of our national greatne.ss. 



The men before me represent the richest and grandest country the sun 

 shines upon. Standing here on the shores of the (Julf of Mexico, looking 

 northward we behold a country of more wealth and l)eauty and grandeur 

 than any other on earth, reaching from the headwaters of the Ohio, and the 

 western slopes of the Alleghanies, over the hills and valleys and plains, to 

 the foot of the snow-clad Rockies; from tlie burning sands of the Gulf to the 

 ice-ribbed shores of the lakes; from the llio Grande to the Red river of the 



