228 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



McFetridge was declared duly elected secretary and treasurer for the 

 ensuing year. 



A motion was made and carried, that the secretary cast the society's 

 vote for the following named gentlemen as a board of directors, viz: H. 

 O. Kelly of St. Louis, Porter A. Wright of Davisburg, C. H. Godfrey 

 of Benton Harbor, J. H. Barr of Saline, and A. W. Strong of Ionia. 

 The above members were declared duly elected for the ensuing year. 



A motion was made and carried, that we rescind the vote whereby we- 

 voted to meet at Toledo for our next meeting. 



A motion was made and carried, that our next meeting be held at 

 Lansing. 



On motion, the meeting adjourned until 7 o'clock P. M. 



Evening Session. 



The meeting was called to order by L. S. Foster, vice-president, when 

 C. F. Allmendinger read a very able paper on the subject, 



FOOD ADULTERATION. 



The members of this association are especially interested in the subject 

 of food adulteration because some of the leading products manufactured 

 by them, notably cider vinegar, fruit jellies, and canned fruits, are 

 imitated and counterfeited by other manufacturers who place the spurious 

 products on the market and proceed to sell them as genuine. Some of the 

 substitutes are injurious to the health of the consumer, but the larger 

 number of them are probably not unwholesome. A fraud is, however, 

 perpetrated upon all users of such compounds. They are put upon the 

 market simply to give some one an unearned profit. It may take place to 

 pile up millions for an Armour, by the sale of oleomargerine, or to enrich 

 others from the sale of other concoctions purporting to be what they are 

 not. Let it be noted that adulteration cheapens cost, always. An adul- 

 teration which increased the cost of manufacture has never been heard of. 



Adulterations come into competition with genuine goods on every hand 

 and in many branches of manufacture have driven makers of genuine 

 goods from the market or forced them also to engage in making counter- 

 feits. Back of these stand the agriculturists, who have no such resource, 

 whose profits are also lessened in many directions. And back of all is the 

 consumer, who even if he secures an article not injurious to health, does 

 not secure as nutritious and wholesome an one as he should. He does not 

 get the worth of his money nor does he get what he pays for. 



The writer has taken up the subject in a general way, not confining 

 himself to adulterations of goods in our line of manufacture alone. If we 

 could get every citizen who is being imposed upon and defrauded of his 

 money, aroused on this subject, the legislation we ask for would soon be 

 upon the statute book; and for one, the writer proposes to keep at this 

 matter until, through some agency, that legislation shall be included 

 among the laws of the state of Michigan. 



Says the special agent of the U. S. government: "The people have no 



