218 STATE rOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



tends to elevate and refine the moral ami spiritual condition of man, arc nobly 

 em]iloyed. 



We cultivate flowers, plants, fjlirubs, and ornamental trees, wo make lawns, 

 build conservatories, construct tasty and elegant buildings, decorate and beau- 

 tify our houses, and do many other things that we might, so far as our physical 

 ■wants are concerned, leave undone; but they are produced, because they repre- 

 sent the visible outgrowth of certain fpialities of the mind, and for these quali- 

 ties they are food as much as the vegetables and fruits are food for tlie body, 

 the providing of which gives us not only a greater appreciation of the beautiful, 

 but stimulates the higher faculties to purer thoughts, wiser purposes, and nobler 

 aspirations. 



Scan the personal character of those you know, turn the leaves in your book 

 of memory, examine well its pages and tell me how many there are that you 

 have known who have found pleasure in the cultivation of plants and flowers, 

 or, in the scicntiflc departments of horticulture and pomology, who have be- 

 come human wrecks, who have been an incubus to society and a discredit to 

 humanity? I think you will note that they are occupations not congenial to 

 those Avho delight to live only on the lower plane of a merely sensual life. 



It is a gratifying fact that our Peninsular State occupies no mean position 

 among her sisters in relation to the propagation of fruits. She is the only 

 State that has collected statistics of orchard and fruit culture. The estimated 

 money value of the fruits she annually produces is about .i>4,000,000, being one- 

 twelfth of the supposed value of the entire product of the United States. 



It is largely owing to the organized effort that this body represents that in 

 this particular Michigan is placed in the enviable position she now occupies. 

 Such is her location, such her climate and soil, that it is possible for your efforts 

 and wisdom soon to place her in the van of all the States. 



It is a work worthy of your deliberations and of the countenance and support 

 of every good citizen. 



Recognizing the importance of the purposes and uses for which you are con- 

 vened, again I bid you welcome to the city of the nativity of your organization. 

 May your councils be pleasant and instructive, resulting in the greatest possible 

 good, not only to yourselves personally, but in more widely extending the field 

 of your usefulness. 



PRESIDENT LYON'S llESPOKSE. 



President Lyon responded in a few well chosen remarks, of which we give 

 the following abstract: 



I feel very much at a loss, after giving a hasty survey over the broad field 

 opened to our view by the worthy Mayor in his address of welcome, to know 

 just where to begin in my brief reply. 



Our society had its origin M'ith your peo])le here at Grand lva})ids. Here it 

 received its name, and it was the peoi)le of this vicinity that fostered its first 

 efforts to establish the reputation that has come to it through persistent and 

 continuous labor on the part of its members. It took the name of State 

 society, and this was considered by many as a very bold assumption, consider- 

 ing that the held of its work was limited to so small an area. But as soon as 

 its strength developed it swung loose from its moorings, and has since been a 

 State society in more than name. To its banner have flocked from everv 



