WOEK OF THE SOCIETIES OF OTHER STATES. 289 



it was reduced to $300, which wo have since received, thongli this is subject to 

 be cut off by any session of the Legislature. 



4. We hold but one regular meeting per atmuni, though called meetings are 

 often had. Our discussions arc free to all witliout reference to membership, 

 and take a very wide range, embracing subjects in the remotest degree affecting 

 the interests of horticulture. A synopsis of these discussions is reported for 

 publication, together with addresses, essays, reports, etc., read before tjie 

 meetings, which are published annually in book form, for distribution to 

 members who pay an annual fee of one dollar, and to such others as may be 

 deemed entitled to them. The Society has at all times pursued the most 

 liberal policy in the distribution of its reports, the sole object of the organiza- 

 tion being to promote and encourage an interest in horticultural topics 

 amongst the people of the State. 



5. Our work is general, though we are especially interested in knowing how 

 to successfully combat the rapidly increasing insect pests. But we are groping 

 in the dark. AVe look with interest to the sciences of entomology and 

 ornithology for a gleam of hope. 



6. Our membership ranges from fifty to one hundred, though our friends 

 and well wishers, who anxiously solicit our published reports, and who often 

 compliment us on the noble work we are accomplishing may be numbered by 

 the thousands. 



7. For the last two years we have enjoyed the use of a small room in one of 

 the State buildings in which we are collecting a cabinet and library. The 

 plans of the new State Capitol, now in course of erection, embrace appro- 

 priate rooms for the use of the society. 



8. In 1842 an Indiana Horticultural Society was organized, surviving some 

 three or four years. In 18G0 the Indiana Pomological (now horticultural) 

 Societv was organized. It was regularly incorporated nnder a State law in 

 1875. " 



9. AVe think our labors are appreciated, and as confirmatory evidence of 

 this fact, I submit as part of my answer to this question, the following edi- 

 torial, clipped from the columns of the Indiana Farmer of Dec. Gth : 



The annual meeting of the State Horticultural Society is an event of more 

 importance than is generally supposed. The attendance is not usually large, 

 nor are the members who meet from year to year the most wealthy and distin- 

 guished of our citizens, nor are their transactions regarded with great consid- 

 eration by our Legislature; on the contrary the appropriations which this 

 body grant the society have been few and small. But yet the work it is 

 accomplishing is important and of increasing value. It affects the health and 

 prosperity of the people of the State in a greater degree than any of us 

 imagine. The annual reports of proceedings sent out by the society present 

 the methods and results of our best and most experienced fruit-growers, and 

 give lists of trees of the different kinds of fruit, that experience has proved to 

 <be best adapted to our climate and soil ; and better perhaps than all beside, 

 they keep alive among our farmers an interest in fruit culture. It is one of 

 the strange and unaccountable facts in farm life that the farmer, who of all 

 men, most needs and enjoys good fruit, and is at the same time best situated 

 for having it abundantly and cheaply, pays almost no attention to its cultiva- 

 tion. At some time in his life he plants an apple orchard, but joerhaps with 

 little knowledge or care as to the varieties selected, and it is an exceptional 

 case where lie prunes and cultivates, or pays anything like the attention to it 



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