MICHIGAN STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 351 



and we must always bear in miud in dealincf with insects that 

 it is far easier to prevent than to cure. 



You are no doubt all of you familiar with the quotation 

 from Dean SAAaft's account of what the King of Brobdignag 

 said to Lemuel Gulliver: "And he gave it for his opinion, that 

 whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, 

 to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, 

 would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential ser- 

 vice to his country, than the whole race of politicians put 

 together." 



I take it that avc are each of us doing our utmost to carry 

 out King Brobdignag's idea, and in these annual reunions, 

 when by interchange of the experience of the out-going year, 

 we hope to benefit each other, let the past be forgotten in the 

 kindly feelings of the present, and the hopes of the future. 

 Let us, in Tennyson's beautiful language, 



"Ring'out the old, 

 Ring In the new. 

 Ring out the false. 

 King in the trnc." 



