

WINTER MEETING AT LEBANON. 193 



In botany our specialists are opening up new fields day by day, and 

 to-day our scientists would think you silly to attempt more than to study 

 the fungi or germs on our plants, when there are whole forests of these 

 plant growths, each as distinct from the other as are the trees in our 

 forests, and which can only be studied with the aid of a powerful 

 microscope. AVell, we will have specialists in this line in the future. 

 In soils, how much we know and much we still must learn. Can we 

 feed our soils or plants and produce results we so much want to know % 

 Can we feed our fruits and get better ones ? Does the soil affect the 

 growth of the fruits, and if so, in what way ? If one variety succeeds 

 in one locality and fails in another, what is the cause of it 1 In climate, 

 have we secured the knowledge we want! Why is a plant hardy, and 

 what makes it so ? Why do plants and trees winter-kill ? Can we grow 

 from certain families of trees, others which will be more hardy, and if 

 so, how ? All of these questions, so hard now, will some of them be 

 solved in due time f In our fruits, what of the future of them ? If I 

 answer that the past quarter of a century is only a beginning of what 

 the future will be, can you appreciate it ? Growth, in not only one line, 

 but in every single department of our horticultural work, is the watch- 

 word of the fruit men. 



I have no time to mention all these departments, flowers, vege- 

 tables, forestry, green-house, ornamentals; the future is bright, and 

 our steps will not be backward. 



And now, as there is so much to do and so much to say, it is my 

 only excuse for this paper. It seems as if every department needs 

 so much to be said that I can hardly hold my pen from running away. 



But when we see large commercial orchards covering all our rich 

 lands, peaches and apples on the Ozarks, grapes on our hills, apples 

 all over the State in large special orchards where buyers can load 5, 10 

 or 20 car loads from one orchard; knowing how to feed our orchards 

 as we feed our hogs, knowing how to care for them as we care for our 

 horses, and knowing how to train them as we do our children, doing 

 nothing to injure them, nothing to discourage them, never causing them 

 to weep with sorrow, pain or shame, then we shall all see the future as 

 I now see it. 



ADDRESS BY MISS MAY JOHNSON, 



Presenting a gavel to the President from the Laclede Horticultural society. 



Mr. President: In all cases, and under all circumstances, a pre- 

 siding officer should be armed with the weapon of his office, and, fearing 

 you may need a weapon to defend the high and exalted position as- 

 signed you as President of the Missouri, State Horticultural society, 



h R— 13 



