Z TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



McWhorter. Prayer was offered by Eev. Mr. Lewis, of the Ply- 

 mouth Church. 

 Hon. Elmer Baldwin delivered the following address of welcome r 



On behalf of the citizens of Ottawa, I welcome yoii to our annual reunion. We meet 

 you as representatives and exponents of the refining and ennobling art of Horticulture, 

 and we expect to derive much -pleasure and profit from this meeting. Your Society 

 has done much to awaken an interest on the part of the people in those pursuits which 

 it was designed to foster; and in carrying out the objects of the Society to a useful result 

 you have done more than was ever accomphshed before in this State, and have paid 

 back a hundred fold what you have received from the State. Combining, as it has 

 done, the experience of the leading fruit culturists of this and adjoining States, it has 

 accomphshed more for this State than anything else ever done for the benefit of Horti- 

 culture and the i-ural arts. We expect much pleasure from intercourse with you, and 

 we anticipate that Horticulture will receive an impulse here, as it has elsewhere, 

 wherever you have been. The part you have taken in the selection of fruits has done 

 much to point out the peculiar conditions of soil and climate necessary for the success- 

 ful cultivation of each kind, and has been of great benefit to the State, and placed it 

 years in advance of what it would have been but for the existence of your Society. 



The regular succession of fruits from early June until the golden time of Autumn, 

 increases the wealth, the health, and the happiness of our people. Thousands of 

 bushels of small fruits, imnoticed before, have of late years been shipped, and this fact 

 can not, in its influence, be over-estimated. We have a soil which for ease of cultiva- 

 tion has no equal, yet it is a naked plain in its natural condition, Avithout a tree or shrub 

 to adorn it, and the condition of the landscape is but an unpleasant and forbidding 

 sight. It requires the hand of intelligent culture to embellish and adorn ; to plant the 

 Spnice and the Fir, tlie Evergreen hedge, the Maple and the Holly, and to embellish 

 it with rural art ; to dress the land and deck it with exotic and native shrubs, where 

 the birds can sing, and children laugh and play, amid scenes of sylvan beauty. Such 

 influences educate the taste of those who dwell among them. This rural art i» 

 ennobling and refining in its character — it elevates the individual and tends to the 

 formation of social happiness, public morality, virtue and patriotism. Mankind natur- 

 ally love their country, but to develop the full force of this love, that country should be 

 made loveable. The Swiss, lining in their happy homes, become passionately attached 

 to their country, and removed from it, they pine away and die of home-sickness. 



I trust your society will never cease in their efi'orts in this direction until every 

 dwelling and every farm house and every shanty on the broad expanse of our Prairie 

 State shall be thus adorned. 



I welcome you to our city, I welcome you to the hospitality of our citizens, to the 

 social converse of our families, to our homes and our firesides. We thus expect to 

 form pleasant acquaintances and learn more of the noble art which you practice, and 

 we expect you will do us good. 



President McWhorter replied as follows : 



In behalf of the Illinois Horticultural Society, over which I have the honor to preside, 

 I will say this very kind and genial welcome, so nobly expressed, by one whom we have 

 long kno^vn as a horticultural brother, is most cordially appreciated. 



