SUMMER MEETING. 21 



Being well repaid for our trip, we arrived at Beverly at 10:30 p. m., 



■where, owing to the failure of the delivery of a telegram, we spent a 



most enjoyable (may be) night without fire, with a corrugated steel- 



^rmed, cross-barred bench for a bed. To fully and completely enjoy a 



trip, you should never fail to telegraph from Kansas City for a team to 



meet you at 10 o'clock at night. You will then have an opportunity to 



Tound up your trip just right. 



Jesse J. Blakley. 



Welcome Address — Dr. I. M. Abraham. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 



When, as citizens of Hiirrisonville and Cass county, we were 

 Informed through the public press that the semi-annual meeting of the 

 State Horticultural Society would assemble in the city, we were glad. 

 While we would welcome to our city and to the grand old agricul- 

 tural county of Cass any convention of our fellow-citizens, it is par- 

 ticularly gratifying to us to have the privilege to entertain a society 

 composed largely of the representative men of this great common- 

 wealtb. Why I should have been selected to perform so pleasant a 

 4uty I do not know, but now, in the name aud by the authority of the 

 good people of Harrisonville aud Cass county, I w^elcome you, ladies 

 and gentlemen, to our homes and hospitalities. Diversified industries 

 are the basis of state and national wealth and prosperity, and we wel- 

 come you gladly, because we recognize you »as laborers, and as we 

 believe pioneer laborers, in an industry that is already second only to 

 the State's agricultural productions as a source of pleasurable sub- 

 stantiality and of revenue. 



We hope no one will take alarm when we say that men are usually 

 influenced in their business life largely through selfish motives. The 

 farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the laborer, as well as those 

 who crowd the ranks of the professions, arevery largely influenced in 

 their eager desire for success through motives of selfishness; and 

 this is right. Selfishness unrestrained is a monster of iniquity and op- 

 pression, but properly restrained it is the lever that moves the world's 

 industries. 



But while you, ladies and gentlemen, are sufficiently selfish in the 

 prosecution of your work to look to and labor for a money reward, it is 

 jour province peculiarly to contribute to the gratification of man's 

 lesthelic tastes. The world's industries are pushed forward largely, as 

 we have intimated, looking only to the grosser — the money reward. It 



