190 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



obliged for any specimens illustrative of what he would want to teach. 

 He also urged the attendance and co-operation of members. 



President Brown returned his thanks to the Society for their kind- 

 ness and forbearance towards him while engaged in discharging the 

 duties of his position. 



Adjourned sine die. 



REPORTS OF COMMITTEES, ETC., 



RECEIVED TOO LATE FOR INSERTION IN THEIR PROPER PLACES. 



Mr. Dunlap, from the Committee Ad-Interim, made the following 

 report : 



REPORT AD-INTERIM BY M. L. DUNLAP. 



To the President of the Illinois State Horticultural Society : — As a member of Ad-Interim 

 Committee, I would respectfully beg leave to report. I do this in accordance with an 

 understanding that the committee do not report as a whole, but that each member 

 makes a report from his individual notes. 



The first meeting of the committee was held in May, at Centralia, and were the guests 

 of the Centralia Horticultural Society, an organization of no small importance to the 

 fruit growers of that locality. This society has a fine hall, well furnished, in which 

 they hold weekly meetings. The members are thus drawn together often, for the pur- 

 pose of consultation in regard to their mutual interests, whether of new fruits, new 

 modes of culture, new fruit packages, or of the markets. Individual knowledge, 

 industry and integrity, become common property and of mutual interest to the whole 

 society. At every point where fruit growing is one of the leading objects of rural 

 labor, a society of this kind ought to be established ; in fact no great progress can be 

 made without it. 



The country about Centralia presents evident signs of lacustrine deposit, overlying 

 the prairie drift, and thus forms a new feature for the orchardist, that well requires his 

 attention. From one to two feet below the surface is a band of compact clay, nearly 

 or quite impervious to water, preventing the surface water from filtering through to 

 the lower strata, and in time of drouth, from rising by capilliary attraction. Tile 

 draining will no doubt have the effect of weathering down this clay band, and thus 

 make the soil and subsoil homogenous, and friable, capable of withstanding, not 



