HORTICULTUR.VL SOCIETY OF CENTRAL ILLINOIS 227 



SECRETARY'S REPORT. 

 BY A. C. HAMMOND. 



Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen: 



We have again assembled in onr annual meeting for the pur- 

 pose of considering the horticultural interests of an important sec- 

 tion of the great Empire State of the west, and as we take a retro- 

 spective view of the held we are made to rememl)er that the year has 

 been one of unusual discouragements. Apples were a complete fail- 

 ure, and untold thousands of trees succumbed to the unfavorable 

 climatic influences. Other tree fruits, as well as grapes, did but 

 little better. Berries of all kinds produced a good crop, but prices 

 were so low that growers failed to make both ends meet. It is there- 

 fore, even were it desirable, an unfavorable time to inaugurate a 

 boom on planting orchards or berry plantations for commercial pur- 

 poses, yet we have an important field to occupy, and should, by ex- 

 ample and precept, encourage and urge every land-owner to plant 

 trees, to supply his family with fruit, for shade, shelter and ornament. 



Our work will not be fully done till every rural home in this 

 heaven-favored land is made as pleasant and home-like as possible; 

 till every laborer's cottage is made a bower of i-usti'c beauty; till 

 every school-house is sheltered from winter's blasts and summer's 

 sun, and the grounds ornamented with a generous supply of ever- 

 green and deciduous trees, and made attractive by the skillful hand 

 of the architect and landscape gardener; till every country road and 

 village street is planted with trees, and kept free from noxious 

 weeds and brush and offensive matter of every kind. 



If, as we all believe, there is an intimate relationship between 

 the beautiful and the good, has not a period in the history of our 

 country arrived when it becomes the duty of every good citizen to 

 make an eai-nest, persistent effort to win the restless, discontented 

 " wage-workers," which we And in city, town and country, away 

 from the saloon, the beer garden and other places of vicious resort, 

 and throw around them the restraining influences of happy, con- 

 genial homes? If so, it is our duty, and, we trust, our pleasure, to 

 help forward the good work, by encouraging the embellishment and 

 making pleasant the village and country homes of this beautiful 

 land. 



" Let the successes of the past stimulate us to greater efforts for 

 the future. Let us work full of ho])e. regardless of all obstacles, 

 until we reach that better land where the gardens shall have no 

 blight, fruits no decay, and where no serpent lurks beneath the 

 bower; where the harvests are not ripened by the succession of 

 seasons, and where the joys of fruition are not measured by the lapse 

 of time." 



