STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 6 



The great object of this gathering is to advance this Science, and I most heartily 

 welcome you to the task, trusting that advancement will be made in selecting and 

 recommending such fruits and flowers, as shall make glad the heart, fill the purse, and 

 forward the aims of this Association. 



I hid you welcome, in view of the healthful influence which I trust will be exerted 

 on the Bunker Hill Horticultural Society, of which I have the honor of being the pre- 

 siding ollieer, to incite us to greater exertions in the more thorough cultivation and man- 

 agement of Fruits and Flowers, and to battle more successfully against the great 

 horde of insect enemies which have almost obtained the mastery. I again welcome 

 you to the hospitalities of the citizens of Bunker Hill, hoping that kind feelings of 

 friendship may be engendered which shall not wane till it shall be our good fortune 

 to welcome you in another session of this Society. 



Judge A. M. Brown, President of the Society, then delivered his 

 annual address: 



Fellow Members of the Illinois State Horticultural Society : 



La pies and Gentlemen,— Our last annual meeting was held in the mellow month 

 of September beside tables laden with the choicest products of the orchard and 

 garden. Nature had smiled upon our labors, and given to us a generous harvest of 

 almost all the fruits suited to our soil and climate. The present year has been un- 

 propitious, and, throughout our whole State, total or partial failure of all the leading 

 fruits has been suffered ; untimely frost in the South, and cold winds in the North, 

 together with the unfailing insect tribe, mildew and rot, left little to gladden the heart 

 or till the pocket of the orchardist. 



These vicissitudes of the seasons are to be looked for, and, indeed, have their advan- 

 tages. They are among those " uses of adversity," which, rightly improved, may lit 

 us for more successful struggles with the future. Failures, no less than successes, 

 teach lessons of wisdom that will be of the highest service to us if we but have the 

 skill to learn, and the courage to apply them. 



The primary thought in the minds of those enterprising and public spirited men who 

 laid the foundations of this Association, seems to have been to encourage the planting 

 of useful and ornamental trees and shrubs throughout the State. Looking around 

 them, they saw vast plains dotted with farm houses, standing cheerless and treeless on 

 the bleak plain, inhabited by a people whose highest ambition seemed to be to grow 

 corn, and -wine, and cattle enough to furnish themselves and their families a liveli- 

 hood, and add other acres to their rude homesteads. They determined to create in the 

 people a taste for something higher and better— to teach them that even a northern 

 prairie would grow the hardier fruits, and that trees and lowering plants around their 

 houses would double, and more than double, the comforts and cash value of their 

 houses. In this endeavor, this Society has been reasonably Buccesi ful. Through its in- 

 fluence, combined with other causes, examples of successful tree-planting may be 

 found in almost every neighborhood, while in many parts of the £ . large commer- 

 cial orchards and extensive groves and belts of forest trees, crown hill and prairie 

 with their verdure. It may be safely calculated thai these examples will, In good time 

 complete what has been so well begun, and that in all the borders of our glorious 



