Department of Horticulture Ixxxvii 



III. extension. 



The members of the department have responded to as many calls 

 for aid at field meetings, farmers' clubs and granges as it has been 

 found possible to assist. Insufficiency of funds to cover traveling 

 expenses has restricted this line of work very materially. The 

 writer was honored with an invitation to speak on fruit growing at 

 the Second Annual Conference of the Governors of New England, 

 held in Boston, in November, 1908. The address given on the occa- 

 sion was printed in the proceedings of the conference and has 

 aroused interest in the utilization for fruit-growing purposes of 

 cheap lands in eastern New York and New England. He was also 

 asked to act as juror at the National Apple Show at Spokane in 

 December, 1908. This gave him an excellent opportunity to study 

 the apples of that rapidly-developing fruit region and put him in 

 a position to get first-hand knowledge of Western methods of apple 

 culture and quality of the product. 



(a) Co-operation. — As indicated above, the co-operation between 

 the American Peony Society and the New York State College of 

 Agriculture at Cornell University, represented by the Department 

 of Horticulture, has been progressing satisfactorily. 



The writer w^as able to assist at the organization of the National 

 Sweet Pea Society the past season in New York city, and eflfected 

 a scheme of co-operation in the study of sweet peas which will 

 bring the trial grounds of this society to Cornell University and 

 make the head of the Department of Horticulture the chairman of 

 the Committee on Trials and Nomenclature. 



(b) Organization of horticultural students. — During Farmers' 

 Week in February, 1909, an efifort was made to organize the former 

 students of the College of Agriculture who are specially interested 

 in horticulture. To this end a society called the Cornell Horticul- 

 tural Union was formed. An early graduate of Cornell University, 

 Mr. E. W. Catchpole, North Rose, N. Y., was elected president, 

 and Mr. C. S. Wilson, Division of Pomology, secretary. The pur- 

 pose of the organization is to promote a closer union between these 

 students and the Department of Horticulture, and to encourage co- 

 operation in experimental work and the business side of fruit 

 growing. 



IV. PUBLICATION. 



Two important bulletins have been issued during the year. The 

 first of these, entitled " The Peony," by J. Eliot Coit, Ph.D., is an 

 illustrated pamphlet of seventy-eight pages giving the history, cul- 



