ADDRESS OF WELCOME 131 



dition, stand up." This man stood up, and some of the un- 

 thinking ones laughed a little. He said to the preacher, "I don't 

 know just what you are voting on, but you and I seem to be in 

 a hopeless minority," I feel that way this afternoon, like I am 

 in a hopeless minority. 



It is a fact, Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, and mem- 

 bers of the society, that horticulture is one of the most impor- 

 tant things in our agricultural development, and one of the 

 things liable to receive scant attention and very little consid- 

 eration. I was talking to a man this afternoon, and I said, "I 

 suppose you raise fruit. " He said, "No, it costs too much; I 

 can raise hogs easier than apple trees. ' ' The commercial spirit 

 that is abroad in the land today has grown to such an extent 

 that I am afraid we are liable to overlook and give up some 

 things which have in them the elements of a high culture for 

 some things that give very great returns in short spaces of 

 time. And yet, notwithstanding that fact, Nebraska has done 

 well. This last year we had about 40,000 acres of land in vege- 

 tables, and our products from the vegetables amounted to about 

 $1,750,000. These are vegetables merely. If we include pota- 

 toes, and we had a wonderful yield in that respect, we would 

 have to add $3,000,000 more to the $1,750,000. We have at the 

 present time close to 5,000,000 apple trees in Nebraska, and the 

 yearly product is very near 3,000,000 bushels. Then we have 

 almost a million cherry trees with a product of fully 75,000 

 bushels for a good year. We have fully 1,500,000 peach trees 

 which, give a good yield. Of plums we have something like 

 700,000, and almost as many pear trees. We have about two 

 million grape vines in the state. Wlien w^e take the products 

 of the work in horticulture and add them all together, our 

 yearly product last year (1904) was something near $5,000,000. 

 But this is all from the commercial side. 



Now I am a believer in horticulture. In the first place, I be- 

 lieve in horticulture because it adds so much to the comforts of 

 life. I think that any man who keeps a garden, whether it be 

 vegetable garden or a flower garden, and who makes an honest 

 and earnest effort to make the garden productive and beautiful, 

 gets in his work a great deal of knowledge and culture. I say 

 this knowing that some of my colleagues will laugh at me be- 



