62 STA'lE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



SECRETAEY'S EEPOET. 



Each year seems to bring new trials and new experiences. A very 

 ^3ry and exhaustive fall, seeming to sap the life out of OLir trees, vines 

 and plants, a very sudden fall of the temperature during the winter to 

 18° to 24° below zero, a series of very severe winds and storms from 

 the southwest, blowing for days, then the cold, blasting east winds, and 

 a freezing norther from the north and northwest, has seemingly blighted 

 the very good prospect for our fruits, which we had been so happy to 

 gee — not such a surplus, but enough to bring good prices. 



We are sure of nothing until the season is through, and it is no use 

 to worry over what has passed, or to count too strongly on what is to 

 come. A blasting simoon, not hot like Africa's, but a cold blast which 

 seems to be just as blighting, passed over our State from the north- 

 west a couple of weeks since, and death is in its track wherever its 

 influence was felt. In all my experience of twenty-five years here, 

 watching closely the changes and influence of the weather, I have 

 never seen the like before. Not only our fruit-trees, but the forest- 

 trees, the shade-trees, the evergreens and shrubs have all shown the 

 effects, and they are serious indeed. I have evergreens in my yard 

 forty feet high, which seem to have been frosted on the entire north- 

 west side so badly that the young shoots are all entirely black. Trees 

 have suffered so severely that the fair prospect for apples of a month 

 ago has been all but blighted, and we may look for good prices for 

 «very bit of fruit we may have. All of our fruits Avill be in demand 

 this year, and no one need lose money on any kind of fruit he may 

 have to sell. I warn all in time, so that they may not let it go to waste 

 nor sell too cheaply. 



The work of the Society continues to grow on all sides ; where 

 we used to have one interested we now have ten ; where there used to 

 be one orchard there are now ten ; where there used to be one thou- 

 sand trees planted there are now ten, until our whole State, nearly, 

 seems to be under the influence of the fruit-grower or the horticul- 

 turist—something like it is in California. Our State is being covered 

 from one end to the other with progressive horticulturists, enthusiastic, 

 determined to make a success of every department of our profession, 

 to study and learn in the different lines of thought, and to take up 



