258 TRANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTUEAL 



The Auditory Committee reported that they had examined the 

 accounts of the Secretary and Treasurer and found them correct. 



The President now appointed the following committees: 



On Flowers— Y rank Heinl, Mrs. R. H. Meade, Mrs. L. C. Nash. 



On Fruits — Col. G. Brackett, of Iowa; Charles Patterson, of 

 Missouri; and H. M. Dunlap. 



On Final Besolufions — W. H. Lamoute, Mrs. F. M. Shelton, 

 and Mrs. Mary E. Grill. 



TUESDAY EVENING. 

 Mr. Dunlap read a paper entitled 



BLESSINGS IN DISGUISE. 

 BT D. H. GKAT. 



"" The Overruling One alone knows the absolute good." If this 

 be true we may at times choose what appears to be good, and meet 

 with disappointment, and find that our expectations were better 

 thwarted than realized. True success lies beyond many failures. It 

 is a problem to the wise man, after years of experience and careful 

 noting, whether to call his apparent failures and successes by the 

 names they bear or to reverse them. It is probably true that all 

 things which touch an ordinarily active, moral intelligence, bless it 

 with a ministering touch. 



I was conversant with a gentleman who was an amateur horti- 

 culturist. He was fond of the garden and gave a great deal of 

 leisure time to experimenting with plants and trees. Being in com- 

 pany with him one day, I directed the conversation to his favorite 

 topic, expecting to hear some fine theories from him on the art he 

 loved so well. But finding him rather slow about expressing him- 

 self, I ventured to remark that his long experience and extensive 

 reading had certainly made him reliable as an authority on the 

 growing of trees and plants. 



"Not my reading," he said, "but my practice, has made me a 

 reliable authority on how not to do it. Why, sir, I was about the 

 first to discover that kerosene in an undiluted state was sure death 

 to bark lice and the tree in about the same time. I have tried a 

 great many kinds of commercial fertilizers, a great many receipts 

 for destroying injurious insects, and many ways to bring trees into 

 fruitfulness. I have a large list of trees and plants that can not be 

 profitably grown north of the fortieth degree of latitude. I have 



