Reception at Horticultural Hall. 59 



ourselves; but we want you to look around, and from what you see to judge 

 us. We have no distinction to make between this and any other locality of 

 California. While we have not forgotten our old homes, we are pleased to 

 live in California, and after a residence of thirty years I am glad to call it 

 my home. 



This city of San Jose is called the " Garden City." I do not know when 

 or by whom it was thus named, but I might suggest that it was because of 

 its resemblance to the garden of Eden. In one respect it is very much like 

 it. It is this: the first pair was planted in that favored spot, and the first 

 pears in California were planted in this vicinity. The first pair was planted 

 in Paradise some six thousand years ago, and these first pears were planted 

 about seventy-five years ago. I do not know the exact date, but I do know 

 that those who have eaten of these pears have not experienced the trouble 

 of the first pair. 



You, gentlemen of the American Horticultural Society, are enlightened 

 on the subject of horticulture, and we hope to reap the benefit of your 

 knowledge, and for that reason we welcome you, also. We have not had 

 the opportunities you have had in the pursuit of your investigations and 

 conferences. What you see of progress in this state has mostly been accom- 

 plished in the last ten or fifteen years. We hope to profit by your knowl- 

 edge, your experience and your investigations. Tell us where we have 

 erred, so that we may profit by your knowledge. We want to know how to 

 do the best thing in the best way, and in that light you are welcome. The 

 people of Santa Clara county welcome you most heartily to their farms, 

 their orchards and their homes, and we trust that the personal friendships 

 thus formed will always be pleasant to all. 



RESPONSE BY DR. J. C. RIDPATH, OF INDIANA. 



I am unable adequately to express our appreciation of the welcome we 

 are receiving. We will always bear with us the most pleasing recollections 

 of our brief sojourn in San Jose. It is difficult, in view of rapid transit, for 

 us to appreciate how very far we are from the regions beyond the mount- 

 ains. Here we are at the very margin that divides the newest of all peoples 

 from the oldest of all, and still we are among friends who speak our own 

 tongue, meeting no unfamiliar accent and no foreign sentiments. Our real 

 interest commenced on entering California at Yuma, where we were so 

 much disappointed that we were tempted to change the engine to the other 

 end of the train and start back again. But we found before going much 

 further that we would have to change the definition of a desert which we 

 had learned at school. We didn't know until then that a desert meant sixty 

 feet deep of soil as rich as that of ancient Egypt. People here have not 

 done their duty in not so instructing us. We supposed a desert was a sort 

 of elevated table-land ; but the first desert we struck in California was some 

 three hundred feet below sea level. In my own state we are trying to re- 

 cover from the waters an area of ground equal to the whole of the Santa 



