SUMMER MEETING. _37 



shape ; but many old orchards are past their time, and may as well be taken out 

 and new ones planted. I have this to eay beyond chance of refutation : If the 

 business be properly followed year after year, you cannot find any other that will 

 pay you better, to say nothing of the increased value these orchards give to your 

 farms and to the community in general. 



OUR society's future. 



About the success of our Society, a subject near and dear to my heart, I wish 

 to say something. I speak the truth with pride when I say that at Chicago, where 

 26 State societies are represented, and where we find the best informed horticul- 

 turists of the land, I was glad to hear the compliment paid our Society as being 

 the best in the country, and Missouri as making greater strides in horticultural 

 progress than any other state in the Union. If there has been anything that I have 

 been working for the last ten years, since I took the position I now occupy, harder 

 than any other, it is to place this Society second to none in this great country. 

 Hence, when these compliments were given the State, I am sure you will not blame 

 your Secretary if the President and he took a sort of pride and satisfaction in 

 them. Our growth has not been rapid, but has been on a good basis, and I look 

 forward with pride to the future as full of hope, life and activity, and successes as 

 well as failures. I wish that we had our usual delegation of over a hundred mem- 

 bers present, at least to have seen Columbia, and to have given the people here a 

 better idea of our strength and our work ; but a busy season, rains and storms 

 have so hindred our work that it has been almost impossible for fruitmen to leave 

 their work, so that what we seem here is not what we are at home. 



L. A. Goodman, Secretary, 



Westport, Mo. 



