178 State Horticultural Society. 



tion of extending a welcome' to you. The people of Boonville feel 

 honored to have you hold this meeting in their midst. We expect 

 to get profit and benefit from it. I hope to be able to attend all the 

 meetings, and feel sure I will get much benefit from it. The program 

 of the evening is prepared, and will both entertain and instruct. 

 While my remarks are brief, our welcome is neither brief nor small. 

 We welcome you most heartily and hope that you can carry away 

 pleasant thoughts of the people of Boonville. 



RESPONSE. 



(By President 0. H. Dutc-her.) 



Ladies and Gentlemen — To the extent of our knowledge of 

 all the good things to which you have welcomed us, Mr. Mayor, I 

 am sure we duly appreciate the cordial welcome you have so earn- 

 estly extended. 



To my fellow fruit growers, I may safely say that not all of us 

 can fully comprehend what this welcome signifies. It is no little 

 thing that we should be thus welcomed to Boonville. We are on and 

 near historic ground. We are not far from where Daniel M. and 

 Nathan Boone established Boonesboro and Boone's Lick, and named 

 them after their father, Daniel Boone, the intrepid Kentucky and 

 Missouri explorer and pioneer. 



True, these places are in Howard county, as the territory is 

 now divided, but every foot of this, Cooper county, was once a part 

 of that vast region known as Howard county, out of which forty- 

 eight counties were carved. Even the portion now called Howard 

 county is of interest to us, for the first man killed by the Indians 

 at the outbreak of hostilities in this Greater Howard county, early 

 in 1812, and lasting till the spring of 1815, was Jonathan Todd, 

 doubtless a worthy ancestor of our own First Vice-President, Mr. 

 T. H. Todd. In 1819 the first circuit court held in the county was 

 presided over by Judge David Todd. 



Two years after the treaty was signed Boonville was founded, 

 and named in honor of Daniel Boone. Cooper county was organized 

 in 1818, and Boonville became the county seat. This distinction, 

 therefore, it has enjoyed for 88 years. Indeed, we are tonight en- 

 joying the hospitality of one of the oldest Missouri towns west of 

 St. Louis. It early became a center of fashion and gaiety — noted 

 for its handsome women — from which it has not yet fully recovered. 

 Many steamboat owners, captains and pilots had their homes here, 



