54 Wisconsin State Hokticultural Society. 



tice of horticulture; to encourage the halting and educate the 

 ignorant; to collate the experience of all, that all may have the 

 experience of each ; to secure larger returns from a given outlay ; 

 to avoid mistakes and consequent failures ; to secure a healthy 

 competition, and recogniz • success by judicious premiums. 



And here we come to th'^ machinery of organization. We 

 need little of the statutory in our organization, but good sense 

 and common courtesy will help us on our mission most of all. 

 A few life recruits and fast friends can, in any community or 

 state, organize and keep in vigorous life a working society, but 

 personal feuds or prejudices should find no place in its ranks. 



The work of our State Society has passed from the first stage of 

 annual gatherings for mutual help and instruction to the wide 

 field of dispensing our funds and wisdom among the local socie- 

 ties of the state. We have little enough of both of these requi- 

 sites, but I trust the oldest of us have not come to dotage or got 

 above the learner's seat. It is a matter of gratulation and a 

 guarantee of success that our state and local societies have so 

 much help from the ladies. Woman's part in horticulture, as in 

 all the walks of life, is to elevate and refine. By her presence 

 and counsel, her winning ways and almost universal love of the 

 beautiful, she will make our meetings and exhibitions both pop- 

 ular and successful. 



Our work demands and is worthy of the liberal patronage oi 

 the state. We now receive the paltry sum of five or six hundred 

 dollars per annum, while the Iowa society receives $1,000 per 

 year; Minnesota receives the same, and has a permanent endow- 

 ment of one hundred and sixteen acres of valuable land for exper- 

 imental purposes; Michigan receives $2,500, Illinois $i,000. By 

 a judicious and careful use of the small fund at the disposal of our 

 society, and the gratuitous printing of the annual report by the 

 state, we are enabled to hold our regular and semi-annual meet- 

 ings and exhibitions, and assist one or more local societies in their 

 local work. Our field of labor is large and varied. From the 

 great lake on the east to the great river on the west, on whose 

 banks we now stand ; from the prairies of Illinois to the Supe- 

 rior of the north, with six degrees of longitude, and four of 



