FORTIETH ANNUAL REPORT. 61 



fvovei-niii!^- the operations of nurserymen and their sale of tree stock, and 

 he said that a conmiissioner should be appointed in every frnit-growing 

 connty. Nothing could be done Avithout cooi:)eration, and the better the 

 cooperation the more benefit would accriie to the fruit-growers. 



INIr. David AYoodard was next called upon, being designated as the 

 ^'youngest horticulturist" in the hall, being 85 years young. His per- 

 sonal experience of forty years as a fmit-grower were related in a bright 

 and breezy manner and he said that he believed that the fruit-growing 

 future of Michigan had in it possibilities that very few people realized. 

 So o])timistic was he that he declared that when the meeting convened 

 in 1925 he would be on hand to show an exhibit of fiiiit from an orchard 

 he had just set out as seedlings. A rousing tiger cheer from the M. A. C. 

 students greeted him when he sat down. 



Secretary Bassett responded to the toast "What Next." "For years," 

 said Mr. Bassett, "Michigan horticulture has been asleep. Our greatness 

 as a fruit-producing section has not been known or appreciated 

 by the outside world as it should be. Indeed, it has not 

 l)een understood or appreciated by ourselves, until the western fruit- 

 growers brought their products and laid J^hem right down at our very 

 feet did we begin to bestir ourselves. It is our mission to exploit these 

 great opportunities which lie in store for Michigan as a fruit state, to 

 the extent that all the world shall know that INIichigan stands at the 

 head of the fruit-growing states of the union." 



Professor M. B. Waite of Washington, I). C, a government expert, 

 gave a very interesting and instructive account of what Uncle Sam is 

 doing for the fruit-growers and the agricultural people in general. The 

 United States Department of Agriculture is sjiending |13, 000,000 an- 

 nually for the promotion and investigation of the science of tue soil; 

 12,000 people are on the pay roll and some 3,000 scientists are engaged 

 in scientific research, the object of which is to aid the farmer and fruit- 

 grower. 



Mr. Paul Crissey of Geneva. 111., spoke on the topic, "Who Is It That 

 Gives the Blast of the Horticultural Bugle — The Newspaper Man." The 

 speaker injected into his short address many witty sayings that kept 

 his audience in a constant state of laughter and closed with an earnest 

 api>eal in favor of the Back-to-the-Soil Movement which he said was the 

 hoj^e of the future best Avelfare of the country. 



Miss Chittenden of I^ansing followed and made one of her character- 

 istic pleas for Avomen in horticulture. She said that the working women 

 in the offices and shops of the cities were many of them specially fitted 

 for many kinds of farm Avork, especially horticulture, small fruits, flower 

 raising, gardening, etc. 



At this point Mr. Daigneau of Benton Harbor, sang a solo which was 

 enthusiastically encored. 



Mrs. Ballard, Avife of the president of the Berrien County Horticult- 

 ural Society, was called upon by the toastmaster and spoke on the sub- 

 ject "The Life of a Farmer's Wife," declaring that she AA^as not ashamed 

 that she was the Avife of a farmer and wished to enter a pro- 

 test against the common idea that the life of the Avife of the 

 farmer Avas a hard one; on the contrary, if it is what it 

 should be, it is an ideal one, for unlike the Avife of the 

 business man, the factory mau, or the city man in general, the farm- 



