Winter Meeting. 239 



edge of every dollar so used." The $72.00 simply followed' tfie course 

 of dues and other money collected by the Secretary under certain cir- 

 cumstances, and in due time appeared as a credit on the Treasurer's ac- 

 count. This is the whole of the "alleged irregular methods and mis- 

 management of the funds of the Society on the part of the Secretary," 

 and seems to me to be a full explanation of a transaction that has re-- 

 suited in much criticism of the Secretary. Of these facts the critics were- 

 not ignorant, for they had been told to them, "at sundry times and in: 

 divers manners." I trust we shall hear no more of the so-called hidderu 

 "inside workings of the Society." 



As the history of 1904 is not all made and none of it published, 1903 

 must close our third and last period. I stated above that 1891 marked 

 the beginning of our financial prosperity. The subsequent facts herein 

 stated abundantly substantiate the claim. But dollars and cents by no 

 means mark our entire progress. Orchards have increased by the hun- 

 dreds, and the acreage of fruit by the thousands. Fruit men from the 

 north and east have come to us by scores and helped to make an in- 

 creased demand for nursery stock. This large influx by immigration in- 

 creased the home demand for "wheat and corn and fruit and wine," gs 

 Mr. Colman put it in 1861, and if we in any way helped to bring about 

 the results of the last election, some of us didn't mean to. 



Surely we have done our part in "working out the great destiny of 

 our State." A reading of the papers, discussions and resolutions for 

 the second and third periods into which I have divided our history, cover- 

 ing a period of twenty-three years, will show you that we have stood no 

 less for honest dealing than did our predecessors, nor have set our faces 

 less "solidly against every fraud and attempt to deceive." This is not at 

 any time a pleasant duty, but owe we it to all new men, whether young or 

 old just beginning in the business of orcharding. In the performance 

 of the duty, however, we should be careful. As I said in Springfield in 

 1892, so say I again, "Let every claim be thoroughly and carefully in- 

 vestigated, lest we be found throttling original investigation and thought- 

 ful invention." 



After reading through a stock of Horticultural Reports four and a. 

 half feet high, I confidently affirm that such seems to have been the 

 course and well recognized duty of all our predecessors; though the 

 doctrine did not assume form and take on formal declaration till June, 

 1892, as recorded in that report, pages 89 and 90. It was then resolved 

 among other things, "that it is the sense of the Missouri State Horti- 

 cultural Society that it owes to the Horticulturists of the State all the 

 protection and advice consistent with the position it occupies." 



