230 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE 



NOVEMBER MEETING. 



The November meeting was held at the Society's rooms, 

 Fuller's Bank, November 7, 1871. 



The Executive Committee were notified by letter that there 

 would be a meeting of that committee in the forenoon of the 

 7th of November. 



The President called the members to order, and made a few 

 remarks relative to the business of the society and the success 

 of the late exhibitions made at the Union Fair of Grand 

 Eapids, and at the fair of the State Agricultural Society at 

 Kalamazoo. He said that many members of the society had 

 taken such an interest in its efforts to promote fruit-growing, 

 that they had donated their premiums to it. It was also a 

 question whether money premiums might not be dispensed 

 with to a great degree, and articles substituted of equal value, 

 which would serve as honorary testimonials, to be preserved in 

 families, of the success which exhibitors had obtained. In 

 Berkshire, Massachusetts, he had seen such awards highly 

 valued as mementoes of the work done by one of the earliest 

 established agricultural societies in the United States. He 

 thought, also, that agricultural periodicals and journals would 

 prove much more useful premiums than small sums of money, 

 which disappeared and left no trace behind them. 



Diplomas, also, were useful as testimonials of the success 

 which had attended the efforts of members to grow certain 

 kinds of fruit, and to show what were the capabilities of a 

 farm, and its soil or location. It was time for the society to 

 adopt a diploma, or some testimonial equivalent to it. He had 

 been much gratified by a visit which he had made to the 



