136 State Horticultural Society. 



SOCIETY WORK. 



(L. A. Goodman.) 



Our work continues to grow and grow, and the demands upon 

 the Society and the calls upon our fruit men increase as each year 

 rolls by. The coming to Missouri of thousands of people from other 

 states has created a new impulse among our people and we are get- 

 ting more and more calls every day for information and advice as to 

 orcharding, location, soils, varieties, training and cultivation, nurseries 

 and where to secure trees, insect pests and how to destroy them, 

 marketing, buyers, cold storage and all kindred subjects, until our 

 office becomes like a horticultural paper, a bureau of information, and 

 a school of instruction. A labor of this kind is a work for the good of 

 the people, and it well behooves us not to hide our lights, but be free 

 and generous with what we know. No doubt that many a man of 

 our Society could have made more money if he had kept all things 

 to himself or worked things out for his own profits, than by giving 

 them freely to the pubHc, but of what use is such a man to his State? 

 It is this continual giving out that makes a man rich in heart and 

 mind, and causes his fellow-man to admire, respect and love him. 

 Our fruit growers are almost universally of this kind, and I could 

 call to your mind a number of such in our State and Nation whom 

 you surely delight to honor. 



We wish to confess before you and to you how much we owe to 

 the unselfish support of our grand army of fruit men all over the 

 State for the position which this Society occupies among the societies 

 of the Nation. It is because these have never failed when called upon 

 to uphold Alissouri, it mattered not how much effort or labor or time 

 or money even it may have cost, it is because of the unity of feeling, 

 this sympathy in aim, this faithfulness of labor that we are today 

 what we are. 



The fact is, simply, that we are stepping upon a higher plane of 

 horticulture year by year ; we are learning new facts day by day ; we 

 are grasping some of the v/onderful opportunities which are opening 

 to our views ; we are realizing the wonderful possibilities of our loved 

 profession; we are beginning to see the magnitude of this fruit busi- 

 ness ; we see before us a field as broad as our land — avenues, opening 

 in all directions for young men and women, and positions ready and" 

 waiting, with no one to fill them. 



