l8 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



SECRETARY'S ANNUAL REPORT, 1904. 



A. W. LATHAM, SEC'y. 



This word which I bring to the members of this society at its 

 38th annual meeting marks the close of my fourteenth year of 

 service as your secretary. The opportunities that have come 

 to us during this period and the resulting developments are as 

 well known to you as to myself, and I will not here dwell upon 

 them. Incidentally the secretary is necessarily more or less in 

 touch with all the horticultural interests of the state, and I might 

 in this report approximately sum v:p the general status of matters 

 connected with our art in a way to furnish a certain amount of 

 valuable information, but as these facts are brought out very 

 largely in connection with the reports of the superintendents of 

 trial stations and the vice-presidents of the society, I will not 

 burden you with a dissertation of that kind at this time, neither 

 will I give you any special word of cheer or encouragement as 

 to the future work, which has been done by our president in his 

 annual address. As heretofore the report is confined very close- 

 ly to practical matters connected with the working of the office 

 that it has been your pleasure I should fill during this long 

 period. 



A special index of the strength of the society in the accom- 

 plishment of its work is necessarily the number of its member- 

 ship, and to this I first call your attention. With the exception 

 of one year since I became your secretary there has been an in- 

 crease of membership over the year preceding. This year the 

 increase has been more marked than usual. I reported to the 

 last annual meeting an aggregate membership roll of 1,430. It 

 is now my pleasure to report an increase of this of 370 members, 

 making the total roll for the year 1904 to date 1,800. Of this in- 

 crease 354 are for annual members. There have been added to 

 the life roll this year fifteen new names, and three have been 

 removed by death. The additions are as follows : Peter Siverts, 

 Canby ; G. A. Anderson, Renville ; Paul Burtzlaflf, Stillwater ; 

 M. A. Eliason, Artichoke Lake; Chas. Hawkinson, Excelsior: 

 Thomas Lowry, Minneapolis ; F. F. Marshall, Crow River : 

 Willis P. Mann, Dodge Center; Ole S. Quammen, Glencoe ; C. J. 

 Manner, Anamoose, N. D. ; Victor A. Neil, Minneapolis; Otto 

 Kankel, Fertile ; C. S. Harrison, York, Neb. ; Alex. Alin, Fuller- 

 ton, N. D., and L, B. Arnold, St. Paul. The deaths are those 

 of Mr. L. M. Ford, who died at San Diego, Cal. ; Jacob Manning, 

 at Reading, Mass. ; and Wm. S. Dedon, who passed away at his 



