AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF NURSERYMEN, SEEDS- 

 MEN AND FLORISTS. 



ANNUAL CONVENTION HELD IN WASHINGTON, D. C, JUNE 16, 17, 18, 19, 1886. 



OFFICERS 



President — C. L. Watrous, Iowa. 

 Vice President — M. A. Hunt, Illinois. 

 Secretary — D. Wilmot Scott, Illinois. 

 Treasurer — A. K. Whitney, Illinois. 



Executive Committee — S. D. Willard, New York, U. B. Pearsall, Kansas, 

 Leo Weltz, Ohio. 



The association met in its eleventh annual session at Washington, June 16, 

 1886. The objects seemed to be those connected with business rather than to 

 bring out papers and discussions upon horticultural subjects. 



Tbe retiring president, Col. N. J. Colman, made a lengthy address from 

 which we make the following brief extracts : 



If the work of subduing tbe tree world, and developing it is to go forward 

 and keep pace with our development in other respects, the nurseryman needs 

 to be sensible of the importance, the breadth and scope of his calling. He 

 needs to be a man of large intelligence. He needs to cultivate himself as well 

 as his trees. He needs to cultivate himself in order that he may properly and 

 successfully cultivate them. He should be a careful student of the laws of 

 plant life. He should be an experimenter, indeed. He should put all theories 

 that have any show of value, to the test of experiment. But he should be also 

 a man of wide reading, at least in the line of his own profession, and knowing 

 thus what has been proved by others, save himself the expenditure of time and 

 labor involved in going over the same ground again. 



To plant trees in misplaced situations is not only a present waste and loss, 

 but it is a discouragement to further planting in the future. This ought not 

 to be any one's experience, and the nurseryman is the one to prevent it. He 

 should know so well the adaptations of trees to situations, and be so conscien- 

 tious in his business as to decline to fill an order for trees, which he 

 is certain will not flourish in the place to which he is asked to send 

 them. For the true nurseryman, the one worthy to bear that name, is- 

 not a man who is willing to palm off upon his ignorant or confiding fellow man 



