JV inter Meeting. 123 



It is located, grows naturally out of the similarity of our work, at least 

 as it pertains to the Agricultural College. We honor all her departments 

 of instruction, and are glad of the success of each, but our especial in- 

 terest was manifested in a resolution I myself had the honor to offer at 

 our Springfield meeting asking the Legislature for ''an appropriation of 

 $25,000 for additional experimental work in horticulture, entomology 

 and botany at the Agricultural College and Experimental Station at 

 Columbia." Yes, gentlemen of the University, just so long as you will 

 allow us to wear a few of your feathers, and you continue to wear some 

 of ours as gracefully as you have done in the past, these birds of similar 

 feathers will gladly flock together very harmoniously. 



We know you have done us much good by meeting with us in vari- 

 ous parts of the State and in many other ways. And somehow we flatter 

 ourselves that you had more furniture upstairs when you came home than 

 when you left, though your pocketbooks may have been somewhat de- 

 pleted. Of one thing I am sure, the work the University professors have 

 done over the State among the farmers and the fruit-growers has brought 

 to the University large returns in the way of new friends, friends con- 

 verted from among the indifferent, the ignorant and the opposing, a 

 deeper interest and larger enthusiasm in old friends, a better understand- 

 ing in many ways, the results of which are readily perceived when you 

 compare the University of the early 70's with the University of the late 

 90's and the three years since. That graphic picture "Before and After 

 Taking" don't any more than tell the story. It was just five years ago 

 tonight we closed the last session we held at Columbia. On pages 232 

 and 3 of our '98 report you can see what we thought then. I lost my 

 modest proposition of $30,000. Mr, Tippin made a dash for $50,000 

 and got it — on paper — but the college got only $40,000. Only four years 

 after this I offered the Springfield resolution already mentioned, and while 

 we do not think we did it all with our little hatchet, we helped ; and what 

 we now see delights us, and we are glad to be here again after a five 

 years' absence. 



Our only regret is that we have not a better display of apples to 

 put before you at this meeting. But you will remember that we have 

 seen a hard time in the last five years. We met here in December, '98. 

 The damage October had done to our orchards by the continued rain 

 to the i6th, and the unexpected freeze that night, which put all our 

 trees to bed with wet and frozen feet, had not attracted our attention. 

 The February freeze following so soon afterward, almost ruined some 

 of us. Fruit buds were killed ; young trees and nursery stock almost 

 wholly ruined; the bark on' many of our old and bearing trees burst 



