144 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



manner from now; customers either came to the nursery direct or sent 

 the orders by letter, if from a distance, trusting to the honor of the 

 nurserymen to furnish sound trees and tree to name. No, I could 

 guarantee all my stock, taking the scions from trees in the orchard ; 

 orders came in thick and fast, and necessitated an immense amount of 

 correspondence. Still I cannot help but think this primitive way more 

 satisfactory to the customers than the later method of selling through 

 glib-tongued agents, always on the hunt for socalled novelties at ex- 

 orbitant prices, and who often makes a dozen varieties out of a single 

 row, if they can have their way about it. Some of my old time cus- 

 tomers may be among you today, and I am not afraid to appeal to them 

 for endorsement. 



But I must condense these reminiscences or I will become tire- 

 some. I only wish to give you a glance at "Auld Lang Syne," until 

 the establishment of the forerunner of your present society, and will 

 be as brief as possible. In the winter of 1854, a few of us organized 

 the Gasconade County Agricultural Society at Hermann, perhaps the 

 oldest county organization in the State, which commenced with ten 

 members, no capital but a monthly contribution of ten cents and a 

 dollar admission fee, and has yet continued until now, holding annual 

 exhibitions even during the war. I had the honor of being its presi- 

 dent for 12 years, being re-elected until I refused to serve. During 

 the first years of its existence the name and quality of the fruits and 

 wines of Hermann had become famous, and when the Pacific railroad 

 was opened as far as Hermann, its peaches, apples, grapes and wine 

 became known along the road, and even in other states. Most of these 

 were shipped to St. Louis, and at what now would be considered extrava- 

 gant prices. Peaches would bring from $2 to $3 per bushel with 

 the Italian froit stands, who would instruct us to pack them in boxes 

 holding 2t} bushels, and in fresh leaves, a tedious process, and which 

 will no doubt call forth a smile on the experienced packer of today. 

 But I recollect that a single large tree of Royal George brought me 

 $26 at St. Louis, all being sold at $3 per bushel. We were not troubled 

 with curculio or maggots in peaches then, nor codlin moths in apples 

 and pears, and could count on a fair crop of peaches every other year. 



Missouri, therefore, seemed a paradise for fruit-growers at that 

 time, and horticulturists from other states had their attention drawn 

 to it, among them F. M. Elliott, the distinguished but somewhat eccen- 

 tric author of the Western Fruit Book. He established an ornamental 

 nursery near Eureka, St. Louis county, and with him originated the 

 idea of a State Pomological Society. The matter was talked over with 

 some St. Louis friends, and in the winter of 1857-8 about a dozen of 



