338 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



LENAWEE COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



REPOKTED BY SECRETARY EDMISTON. 



OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY FOR 1886. 



President — F. J. Hough. 

 Vice President — S. B. Mann. 

 Secretary — D. G. Edmiston. 

 Treasurer — E. W. Allis. 

 Librarian — Dr. W. Owen. 



The society has held a meeting regularly each month during the year. The 

 attendance has varied from fifteen or twenty up to one hundred or more. The 

 largest meetings were held in August and September, when the children and 

 young people were out of school and when an abundance of fruit and pleasant 

 weather combined to draw out a good attendance. 



Our meetings have been all day meetings throughout the year, commencing 

 at ten o'clock a. m. and closing at four or five in the afternoon, with about two 

 hours out for dinner and looking over the grounds, examining fruits, etc. 



Commencing with the May meeting our meetings have been held at private 

 residences, some of them in the city and its suburbs, and some of them several 

 miles out in the country. 



To these meetings the members of the society and visiting friends have 

 come with their lunch baskets, and at noon with the addition of tea and 

 coffee made on the ground, the ladies of the society would spread a sumptuous 

 dinner for the society and guests. 



The noon hours also gave an opportunity for a committee and any others who 

 desired to do so, to look over the grounds of the host, see the various kinds of 

 fruits etc., in their different stages of growth, and make comparisons of varieties 

 etc., etc. 



I mention this matter of the dinner because the two hours usually given to 

 the dinner and social visiting have enabled the members of the society from 

 different parts of the county to form acquaintances that they might not other- 

 wise have had a chance to do, and to exchange views in a social way that is 

 often worth more than the public discussions. And it has enabled us to secure 

 the attendance and participation of the ladies at these meetings; an item of no 

 small importance towards the success of the society. 



It had been supposed by many of us that as winter approached we would 

 have to return to a public hall for our monthly meetings until spring; but as 

 the time approached such a strong feeling prevailed in favor of continuing the 



