4 STATE HORTICULTUKAL SOCIETY. 



ment or assurance as to the manner of disposal. An earnest effort, extending 

 through two or three years, failed to secure improved results through this pro- 

 cess, while earnest calls upon the society for tliese volumes by persons engaged 

 or interested in fruit culture, had already become too numerous to be supplied. 

 Eeeling that, under this condition of affairs the society might be thought 

 chargeable with lack of requisite care in the distribution, its Executive Board, un- 

 der instructions from the Society, at its annual meeting in December, 1879, took 

 the whole matter under careful advisement, and after mature deliberation devised 

 the plan of promoting the formation of local, county, city, village, and town 

 societies, either pomological or horticultural, as should best suit each locality. 

 In very many places the local interest was found to be more horticultural than 

 otherwise, and since the two are everywhere so intimately associated, and both 

 seemed equally essential to the highest success of these local societies in the 

 majority of cases, and especially since, in the modern sense horticulture has 

 come to include pomology, it seems indispensible, if the general society would 

 continue to be in fact a State, and not a local organization, that it should as- 

 sume the more general title, which it accordingly did by vote of its members, 

 at its regular meeting in June, 1880. 



This plan for the organization of local auxiliary societies is coupled with a 

 provision making every member the recipient of a copy of the current volume 

 of the Transactions, and also making the local society the custodian and dis- 

 tributor of such portion of them as it can profitably use, and as can fairly be 

 assigned to it. When we consider that the 6,000 volumes of Transactions to 

 be distributed by the society will only supply one copy to each 250 persons in 

 the State, it will easily be discovered that the supply must necessarily be inad- 

 equate to the legitimate demand ; hence the desire of the society, in the ad- 

 vancement of the great interest it has in charge, to give the utmost effect to 

 every volume distributed. And without claiming special wisdom in this partic- 

 ular, we may be permitted to remark that so far, results under the present process 

 of distribution have been eminently encouraging. That the society has been 

 charged with selling the volumes has absolutely no foundation, beyond the fact 

 that a person's membership in a society is considered to be the best possible 

 evidence of his interest in the subject. 



The question is asked, What special claim has fruit growing, to be thus fa- 

 vored? We reply that unlike most prominent interests, neither the agriculturist 

 nor the fruit-grower, as the rule, has any personal advantage to gain by adver- 

 tising, since his products must make their way in the markets strictly upon 

 their merits; while the increased reputation of these products, and the higher 

 reputation of the State for such purpose only serves to increase the competition. 

 If, therefore, the State would advertise its capacity in these respects, it is too 

 much to expect it to be done at other than public expense. 



That the efficiency and high standing of the State Horticultural Society, 

 both at home and abroad, has excited a degree of jealousy in certain quarters, 

 and that such feeling has found expression through the daily press of the State, 

 and in covert efforts to prejudice the public feeling, and to some extent, as we 

 are assured, the feelings of legislators, is our justification for these remarks. 



On motion, the whole matter of the distribution of reports was referred to 

 the Executive Board. A number of others took part in the discussion, and all 

 seemed perfectly satisfied to trust the board with the subject, giving them power 

 to act in their discretion. 



