382 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



ANNUAL ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT C. N. DE.VNIS. 



In any new uudertaking or new departure we ask or think 

 " What will the harvest be? " And at the close we might well con« 

 sider, What has the harvest been? Another year has rolled around 

 and brought our annual reunion, and the kindly touch of the hand 

 and friendly glance of the eye enables us to think less despondently 

 of our failures, and more gladly of our successes, during the past 

 very discouraging year. What is the reason of our existence as a 

 society? Is it not to learn and disseminate how to prevent, remedy 

 or ameliorate the results of just such years as this, or, if this is impos- 

 sible, to teach perseverance until we outgrow them. Again, our 

 work is to discover and disseminate better methods of planting, shel- 

 tering and Ijeautifying our grounds and homes; of growing, gather- 

 ing, storing, utilizing and presering fruits. Also the duty of promul- 

 gating these and educating our generation up to a realization of their 

 importance and value. 



Are we doing this? An inquiry to the New York Sun last sum- 

 mer from a party in Missouri, as to what to plant, was referred to 

 the Warsaw Horticultural Society as the best authority known by 

 the editor. A. C. Hammond's paper on Orchards was greeted far and 

 wide as reliable, and numerous other examples might be cited. And 

 this brings the inquiry, are we doing our duty in informing ourselves 

 so that really intelligent answers can be given to the numerous inqui- 

 ries that do and will come to us from time to time? Or shall we be 

 "blind leading the blind?" 



We are called to mourn the loss of one of our intelligent mem- 

 bers, J. S. Johnson. A close observer and careful experimenter, he 

 had become almost indispensable to the Society, and leaves a vacancy 

 in our ranks hard to fill. And how are we to fill our ranks as these 

 vacancies must and will occur? On whom are our mantles to fall? 

 Where is the young man to assume and fill the place of the lament- 

 ed Johnson? Methinks I can hear him from the other side urging 

 us to do more and better than when he was with us. 



In our orchards the harvest has been mainly of trees destroyed 

 by the combination of circumstances of the two past years. These 

 must be replaced by as good or better varieties, and cared for as best 

 we can from the knowledge we now have, or can ol^tain, to the end 

 that we advance instead of retrograde. 



Our calling is a noble one and worthy of our best efforts. We 

 are, as yet, hardly on the threshhold, and until we are masters of the 

 situation, have carried and can " held the fort " against insect and 

 blight, field mice and rabbits — in fact, against every depredator of 

 our orchards, fields, and gardens ^ — will our work be completed and 

 we be allowed to lay ofl; the harness. It is by united effort that we 



