276 • , State Horticultural Society. 



gardening in single spots or places. In Kansas City, more perhaps than 

 in any other city which 1 know of, wc find carried out a system of orna- 

 mental planting, a general design running throughout — park system, 

 boulevard system and many of the large residence districts, which unify 

 into one whole the nidividual planting about single homes. The work 

 seems to have been organized on a comprehensive scale, which makes 

 the entire town united, and in that way harmonizes the work of each in- 

 dividual citizen in a way which is seldom realized in a city. 



In this phase of horticultural activity we feel that Kansas City is 

 especially to be commended, that she has reason to be proud of her 

 achievements, and we want to acknowledge the stimulation which it is to 

 us as horticulturists, to get a view of the successful work in ornamental 

 gardening influence which the city is pushing forward. While directly 

 we deal with the commercial phase of fruit growing and of vegetable 

 gardening, and those things wdiich primarily tend to increase the wealth 

 and the material food supply of the people, we should not be unmindful 

 of the esthetics in horticulture and to what horticulture contributes to 

 the esthetic side of our natures. 



Your representative in his address of welcome very beautifully 

 referred to the blossoming of a fruit tree and the inspiration which can 

 be gotten from a study of it, and I am led to suggest that that sounds 

 the key note to what we believe to be one of the important objects of 

 our meetings, not merely to learn how to produce more fruit or to pro- 

 duce more sorts from our fruit, but to learn how to get a larger in- 

 spiration from our lives as horticulturists. The fruit grower who can 

 produce profitable crops does well perhaps, but the fruit grower who can 

 learn to see a lesson in every tree which he cares for, a lesson which wil'. 

 give him a better understanding of its life history, of its habits, or its 

 needs, and of how it responds to treatment, does yet better. While 

 working with our trees we should notice what they have to show us, 

 by a study of their twigs in winter to see what ones have produced fruit 

 buds and what ones only wood buds, and thus predict the prospect for 

 a crop ; it is possible for us to know what portion of the tree bears fruit 

 buds and what portion produces only leaf and wood buds to guide us 

 in our pruning; it is possible, by a study of the leaf scales in leaf de- 

 velopment, to know whether the leaves have in the past summer stored 

 up sufificient food and nourishment to produce a crop of fruit the com- 

 ing spring, or whether they have failed to mature their wood. A study 

 of the fruit scars reveals to us whether fruit has been produced in any 

 given previous season, and the size and well or poorly marked char- 

 acters of the scars enables us to judge with considerable accuracy 

 whether a given fruit produced some years ago ripened to full maturity, 



