68 Second Annual Report 



PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



G. H. te;rrill. 



The Vermont State Horticultura,! Society meets for its 

 tenth annual meeting, and with it comes, as it were, a new im- 

 petus, a new hope. For the first time in its life we have some 

 money to do business with. A few have struggled hard to 

 keep the wheels going, and though their courage sometimes 

 faltered, yet from love of the cause a few have kept them rolling 

 until in 1904 we asked the Legislature for a small appropriation 

 and obtained at their hands $500 per year. If we use any of it 

 injudiciously we will lose such part so used. So it behooves us 

 to see to it that it is wisely used. With this new inspiration, we 

 as horticulturists, ought to be stimulated to encourage a large 

 membership of those engaged in horticultural pursuits, and who 

 should be interested in our work all over the State. Increased 

 membership means increased interest in the business, a larger 

 planting of fruits and flowers upon our hillsides and in our 

 valleys, and more thought and care bestowed upon what we 

 already have. 



It seems to me that one of the things most needed by Ver- 

 mont orchards in our best fruit section is fertility, and we should 

 try and encourage the planting of legumes, such as clover, vetch, 

 etc.. to be fed to sheep or hogs in the orchards, or some other 

 method of fertilizing, more largely than it is done at the present 

 time. This method I believe applies to orcharding, the best 

 of any line of farming in our State, and offers the best and 

 cheapest means of keeping up fertility, and getting it back, 

 where the land is smooth so it can be easily worked. We as a 

 State, have many natural advantages, as we can produce fruit 

 of the finest and best, and when we have raised it we have a 

 climate to keep it in that is hard to beat, even by the best pro- 

 cess of refrigeration in the country. Yet we are producing 

 but a small amount as compared to what we ought, and as I believe 

 in the near future, by the influence of this Society, the Press, 

 the Experiment Station, the Board of Agriculture, and last but 

 not least, the Grange, we will be doing. 



We will soon see young men with trained minds and earnest 

 hearts, grasping some of the advantages, and working out for 

 themselves and those about them, under these favorable con- 

 ditions as to soil, climate, temperature, etc., the problems yet 

 unsolved. In the years that are past many of our best young 

 men and women went to other states and engaged in other pur- 

 suits,, and in many instances, have reflected credit on our good 

 old Vermont as their birthplace; but I believe there are fewer 



