WINTER MEETING. 443 



mercial fertilizers or not, there can be no such question witli intelligent horti- 

 culturists. All that we receive for a crop above cost is profit, and the only 

 way to get more profit is to reduce the cost or increase the selling price. The 

 latter we can not do. We may, however, reduce the cost by raising better 

 crops with the same labor and on the same area. In order to do this we must 

 make the land richer, so that our labor will produce two or three times the 

 crop, and perhaps ten times the profit. Stable manure will do this, and if 

 one has enough of it he will need little or no commercial fertilizer. There 

 are times, however, when it would cost less to purchase and apply commercial 

 fertilizers than it would to apply stable manure if one had it in the yard. 

 Ton pounds of nitrate of soda, worth 30 cents, may be worth more in raising 

 celery plants, or some early vegetable, than two loads of manure. Some- 

 times a person is obliged to plant a crop on land that he can not manure at 

 the time. His only chance in such a case is to apply some commercial fer- 

 tilizer which may enable him to raise a paying crop. When one wants to 

 apply plant food with a view to getting most of it back in the first crop, 

 commercial fertilizers offer him the only chance. Sometimes there is a great 

 accumulation of potash and phosphoric acid in the soil of old gardens, and 

 all that is needecl to make it productive is an application of two or three 

 pounds of nitrate of soda to the square rod. 



M. CEAWFORD, 

 Cuyahoga FallSj Ohio. 



Afternoon Session. 



The meeting was called to order early in order to hear from both Prof. Bailey 

 and Prof. Cook before their train left for Lansing. 



Prof. L. H. Bailey, of the State Agricultural College, addressed the society 

 upon 



CITY AND VILLAGE HORTICULTURE. 



[abstract.] 



The speaker first spoke of city horticultural societies. It should be 

 the aim of such organizations to control the ornamentation of cities. They 

 should make their influence felt so thoroughly that they shall be consulted 

 in the planning for parks and for street adornment. Through a quieter, 

 though, perhaps, stronger influence, they can largely control much of the 

 planting done in private grounds. In short, the city horticultural society 

 should be in a very important sense the guardian of all local ornamental gar- 

 dening, and the center of good horticultural practice. This oflSce it can per- 

 form without any oflflcial or officious announcement. Quiet, persevering, 

 honest, intelligent work will soon gain the respect of the community. 



Some hints were thrown out concerning city ornamentation. Landscape 

 gardening, as ordinarily used, is a broad term, covering both a fine art and an 

 industrial art. Every fine art must have an industrial or mechanical art 



