THE FIFTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING OF THE MICHIGAN 

 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY WAS HELD IN THE 

 PRESS HALL, GRAND RAPIDS, MICHI- 

 GAN, ON DECEMBER 6, 7, 8, 1921. 

 OPENING SESSION. 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME, EDMUND W. BOOTH, PRES. GRAND RAPIDS PRESS. 



It is perhaps fitting that a newspaper man should welcome you, for 

 I find that it was a newspaper man, Henr}^ S. Chubb, of Grand Haven, 

 who sent out the call for the first organization meeting of this society, 

 and a Grand Rapids newspaper man, Jonathan P. Thompson, was elected 

 President at the Society's first annual meeting. 



In coming to Grand Rapids you do not come among strangers. On 

 the contrary, it is a homecoming for you — a return to the Society's place 

 of nativity — a visit among old friends and to places that are historic 

 in the development of Michigan's fruit growing industry. It was here 

 that the Michigan Horticultural Society was organized fifty-one years 

 ago and it was here that western Michigan's first nursery was started 

 by Abel Page in 1836. Page collected such wild fruits and berries as he 

 could find, improved them by cultivation for the gardens of the pioneers, 

 and planted the seed of the apple, the cherry, the plum, the pear, and 

 brought scions from the East to graft upon the seedlings. 



The first fruit marketing association in Michigan, and perhaps in the 

 country, was organized in Grand Rapids. That was more than forty 

 years ago when peach was king and Grand Rapids its capitol. The 

 work of this association brought buyers from all parts of the country 

 and gave Western Michigan its first fame as a fruit producing district. 

 It established Grand Rapids as the greatest primary wholesale market 

 in the country, a rank which Grand Rapids still holds. 



Grand Rapids is also the home of citizens eminent in horticulture 

 and first among those I name Charles W. Garfield, for years your secre- 

 tary and for a number of years secretary of the American Society, who 

 all through life has been an apostle of the beautiful in trees, in shrubs 

 and flowers, a lover of nature and of children and of his fellow-men, and 

 whose influence is continually felt in our midst to make Grand Rapids 

 a better and still better city. This is the home, too, of Robert Graham, 

 for twelve years Chairman of the State Board of Agriculture, and who 

 gave to Michigan the experimental and demonstration farm, which bears 

 his name and which must influence greatly the future of Michigan fruit 

 growing. This is the home also of Oscar Braman, Henry Smith, Charles 

 Wilde and J. P. Munson, who have done so much to point the way to 

 success in fruit growing by scientific methods. Mr. Munson's father. 

 William K. Munson, was a leader in viniculture in western Michigan 

 and the originator of the Kind and other varieties of market grapes. 

 I must not forget, too, that W. R, Roach, world famous as a canner of 

 fruits and vegetables, is a citizen of Grand Rapids, as is also W. S. Thomas 

 of the Thomas Canning Company both to be counted among the good 

 friends of the fruit industry. Among our financial men are practical 

 farmers like Dudley A. Waters and William H. Anderson, and there is 



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