58 ANNUAL rtEPORT 



SO, by our act of incorporation, and has appropriated the public 

 money to our use for the purpose ; wo have accepted the 

 trust, and must execute it. How shall we distribute the 

 valuable information on horticulture that we collect annu- 

 ally in our papers, discussions, corresp ndence, and reports, 

 so as to arouse an interest among the people at large, and do 

 them the most good? It is not for me to answer this question 

 alone; but I would suggest that for one thing, some practical plan 

 be devised for organizing town and county horticultural societies, 

 and as an inducement to the people, to take hold and keep alive 

 such societies, that we offer our reports free of charge from year to 

 year to the members of all such societies that will make us an 

 annual report of their doings, and send one or more delegates to 

 our annual meeting each year. I am not sure but that the most 

 efficient means to this end, would be for one year at least, to adopt 

 the traveling lecture system, in use by other societies, and send 

 out some one to call meetings and talk to the people about Horti- 

 culture, and assist them in getting their local societies started. In 

 some States in the West, in all for aught I know, whenever there is 

 Horticultural missionary work to be done, the railroads extend 

 their aid by granting free passes for the necessary traveling for 

 this purpose, ou their lines; and probably the whole-souled corpora- 

 tions doing business on the rail in Minnesota, would willingly do 

 their share in the work proposed. Transportation and expenses 

 provided for, the societ}', would I presume, not have to look long 

 nor far, for some one or more, public spirited and competent mem- 

 ber or members, to go out, at least on invitation from localities, 

 on such recruiting service. In the Michigan transactions for 1881, 

 I find reports from eighteen auxiliary local societies, and in the 

 Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois transactions, for the same 

 year, a large space is occupied by proceedings of local societies. 



AMERICAN POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The president in his address has recommended that this society 

 take measures to send delegates to the meeting of the American 

 Pomological Society at Philadelphia, in September next. If we are 

 to have the fruits of Minnesota on exhibition there in creditable 

 shape and variety, it will be necessary to send out a committee to 

 gather up selections, and get them together. If the coming season 

 should be favorable for fruit, we can by that means exhibit nearly 

 or quite one hundred varieties of the apple and fifty of the crab, 

 and an extensive list of lovely grapes, and demonstrate the possi- 



