THE ANNUAL MEETING. 227 



For o^ardoning, Ileiulorsoii's Gardening for Profit, is very complete, and pop- 

 ular; Money in the Garden, by P. T. (2uinn, is considered by some better than 

 Oardeniiir^ for Profit; each of these cost $1.50. In Floricultnre, Henderson's 

 Practical Floriculture is not excelled, price, $1.50, for those growing flowers 

 to any great extent; for the amateur, Henderson's Gardening for Pleasure, 

 embraces both flowers and vegetables, and will be found valuable ; price $1.50. 

 Injurious Insects, by A. J. Cook, 15 cents, is an excellent hand book to own. 

 Every man engaged in fruit culture in this State should have the last five or 

 8ix volumes of the Pomological reports; they cover the ground of fruit grow- 

 ing in Michigan more completely than anything else that can be procured, 

 besides much other valuable matter. The set of Rural Affairs, eight volumes 

 in all, price $12.00, arc very fine; they contain good articles on everything 

 imaginable connected with farming or horticulture, and should be in every 

 live farmer's library. There are many other books well worth buying if one 

 lias the means to procure them. 



Of papers, if but one is to be taken, and that devoted to fruit-growing, per- 

 haps the Fruit Kecorder by A. M. Purdy, Palmyra, K. Y., will be as good as 



any. 



For a journal which includes both farming and general horticulture, I 

 think no paper in this country excels The Country Gentleman, published by 

 Luther Tucker & Son, Albany, JST. Y. The Kural New Y^orker and American 

 Agriculturist are both agricultural papers with good horticultural depart- 

 ments. The papers mentioned are a few of those I consider the most valuable. 



There are papers, such as the Gardener's Chronicle, The Garden, foreign, 

 papers, and the Gardener's Monthly, published in Philadelphia, purely horti- 

 cultural journals that would rank higher than those first mentioned, but they 

 are designed more especially for the professional florist, botanist and scientist ; 

 they are not suited to the average farmer and fruit-grower, therefore I have 

 not included them in my list. 



Mr. Gulley closed by giving a description of Dr. Sturtevant's method of 

 keeping notes by having boxes on a library shelf set up like books, and carry- 

 ing slips of paper in the pocket that nicely fit the boxes. Each box is a divi- 

 sion or subject, and as one comes in at night with slips filled with notes during 

 the day they can be slipped into their proper boxes. If at any time then, one 

 wants to get at all the information he has upon a topic, he has only to turn to 

 the box devoted to the subject and turn out his slips of notes. 



Geo. W. Bridgman, who was to follow in this discussion, was unavoidably 

 absent, and sent a note to the Secretary saying : 



*^Do not fail to insist that for the farmer of Micliigan and the horticul- 

 turist of Michicran the best of all books are the Michio^an Airricultural and 

 Pomological reports. * * * j^ i\^[^ class of publications, as in all others, 

 there is an immense amount of chaff and rubbish — yet very often a plump 

 kernel will appear when least expected that may be the seed of a fruit-grower's 

 prosperity. There is one article to which I desire to call special attention, as 

 I believe it to be to the practical farmer and fruit-grower, worth at least a 

 year's subscription to all the agricultural, horticultural, and pomological jour- 

 nals of the world, and that is an article by Prof. Beal, found on page 45:1: of 

 the Michigan Pomological Report for 1877 entitled "Darwin's New Book,'' 

 (the effects of cross and self-fertilization of plants). I had hoped to be able 

 to be on hand to say a word concerning the objections to book farming with 

 illustrations ; yet after all, the failures in that line are no more caused by the 

 errors taught in the books than is the failure of Johnson to become a success- 



