STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 57 



Paris 1 and 2 of same for 1874 to 1878, 1 volume each. 



1848, 1 volume. 



185'2, 1 volume. 

 Address by Marshall P. Wilder, 1875. 

 Transactions Iowa Horticultural Society. 



1879, 2 volumes. 



1>80, 1 volume. 



1881, 3 volumes 



LOCAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES. 



One obstacle in the way of the usefulness of this society is the 

 want of a really practical method of communication with the 

 people of the State most interested in our work, and most needing 

 the benefit they might receive in reading our reports. Our mem- 

 bership is inadequate for this purpose. We have less than a hun- 

 dred active Minnesota members, and they are all in no more than 

 fourteen counties, and of the five thousand copies of our reports 

 annually printed, the members themselves do not receive over 

 three hundred for themselves and for what distributions they make 

 in their several localities, all told. There is at present but one 

 county horticultural society receiving the reports — that is the one 

 in Lyon county; and as to county agricultural societies, I am 

 unable to ascertain, after applying to the secretary of the State 

 Agricultural Society for the information, whether there are any of 

 these organizations entitled to or desiring to receive them. We 

 send out under the law about 200 copies to the newspapers of the 

 State, one to each paper, lOO to the State Agricultural Society, 

 500 to the State Board ot Immigration — which are presumed to 

 mostly go to foreign parts — 50 to our lone sister of Lyon county 

 aforesaid, 500 to the State officers and the legislature, about 300 as 

 aforesaid to the members of the societ)% and the rest to various 

 newspapers and persons supposed by the secretary to be entitled 

 to them or known to want them, or applying for them, making in 

 all not over 2,000 copies. There are no regulations of the society, 

 that I am aware of, governing the distribution, and it will be seen 

 by a little study, that under the present system- -or rather want 

 of system — there ai'e really but few of the farmers and gardeners 

 of the State who ever see our reports, or know upon what terms 

 they can obtain them. It is no remedy for this unhappy state of 

 facts, to say that the people might have the reports if they would 

 take enough interest to join the society, or even apply for them. 

 That may be very true, but it does not get the reports into circu- 

 lation. It seems to me that it is our business to find out some way 

 to get t)jem into the people's hands. We are the guardians of the 

 horticultural interests of the State. The legislature has made us 



