50 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



growers and the students than existed. ''We need the practical side of 

 this training and we want you to give us a chance to come where you 

 are and work with you. Please do not be prejudiced against college 

 students for there is nothing that will give us boys more joy in our 

 future experience than to look back to the time when you took us in and 

 helped us to make our theoretical knoAvledge most practical. I want to 

 thank the management of the Michigan State Horticultural Society for 

 giving us a chance to come up here and get acquainted with the fruit 

 growers of the State." 



Mr. C. J. Monroe was next introduced and spoke quite at length of 

 his recent tripvS, especially through the south and of the wonderful possi- 

 bilities there were in that country. He spoke also of the great advance 

 that had been made in the schools and especially the training of the 

 colored people, and was enthusiastic in his belief that the training the}' 

 were receiving at such schools as the Tuskeegce college would soon place 

 them where they would be able to coi>e with the many problems that they 

 had to meet. 



Prof. Eustace, of the Agricultural college, was the next speaker and 

 gave a very interesting account of his recent visit in the west and of 

 the conditions that existed there in regard to the fruit raised and his 

 observations. His deductions were that there were conditions that 

 existed that were not generally known — the apples raised were good, 

 but they had the same pests to contend with that we did, only more so; 

 they raised big crops, but still every one of these people were willing 

 to sell out. They all wanted to be on the move. The real conditions 

 could not be learned by inquiry. Here it is different — the fruit is just 

 as good, the land not anything nearly so high, the freight rates low, the 

 market close at hand — why not be content to develop and make the most 

 of what we have? That was his feeling after the visit. 



Mr. Roland Morrell was introduced as the last speaker who, after a 

 few felicitous remarks said, "It has been ten years since I have met 

 with you before and I cannot tell how I have enjoyed meeting the old 

 boys again and seeing whether they had got away with anything since 

 I have been gone. 



There are a few things, however, that are ha})pening throughout the 

 country' that has a tendency to give one bad dreams and one of them 

 is the way many newspapers and city writers have of getting the other 

 fellow back to the country. Promotion schemers induce stenographers, 

 clerks, kitchen girls, anyone who can pay from |2 to ifS a month on a 

 few acres of land out in the country that are grafts pure and simple. 

 Some of these schemes are right here in Michigan as well as in other 

 states. This detestable practice, these swindling operations should be 

 given all the publicity possible, for it will mean only disappointment 

 and failure in the end to a great majority of the investors. Of course, 

 there are isolated cases that are different, but I want to raise my voice 

 against the advantage that is being taken by dishonest promoters of 

 the "back to the soil" movement to impose on innocent and unsuspecting 

 young people who part with their hard earned money to find in the end 

 that they have been swindled. 



Well. I am glad to be with you and I want to say to these young men 

 that there is in the highest culture of the soil a range of study sufificient 

 for any young man and I believe that as much money can be made from 



