PRESIDENT S ANNUAL ADDRESS. I9 



PRESIDENT'S ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



CLARENCE WEDGE, PRESIDENT, ALBERT LEA. 



Fellow Members : It is with rejoicing- and feelings of pro- 

 found gratitude to the Good Father above that we assemble in 

 this our fortieth annual convention. As the feast of the Passover 

 brought together the scattered families of the ancient Hebrews in 

 one great tribal reunion, so has this December week become the 

 great festival whereunto all the horticultural tribes come together 

 in helpful fraternal fellowship, bringing with them the choicest 

 fruits of their soil and of their experience. While this is not an 

 elective assembly, and no salary is attached to its membership, and 

 it hands down no laws to its constituency, it has seemed to me 

 that, considering the interests which our five affiliated societies 

 represent, we have functions to perform for the state scarce- 

 ly less important than those of the legislature itself. It is for 

 us to lead the way in every improved method in orchard and 

 garden management ; to encourage such adornment of the homes 

 of our state as will make them lovable and their occupants con- 

 tented and patriotic ; to educate the public to a better under- 

 standing of the value and practical management of our great for- 

 est resources ; to stimulate and encourage the breeding of better 

 and more useful plants, from the tender garden annual to the giant 

 timber tree ; and, lastly, to teach more perfectly the art that 

 saves from waste the thousands of tons of precious nectar that 

 our fruits and flowers produce. These interests and many others 

 related to them have been confided to the care of these affiliated 

 societies. 



How well those that have preceded us have done their work 

 may be judged by the progress made during the forty years 

 since our organization. In the evening of October 4, 1866, as 

 the result of an especially encouraging exhibit of frun made by 

 our honored leader, J. S. Harris, at the state fair, this society 

 was organized. The list of apples that made up that exhibit has 

 fortunately been preserved, and out of it only one, a Vermont 

 seedling that received little notice at that time, has proved of 

 any permanent value. With the exception of the Duchess and 

 Tetofsky, which shortly came into cultivation, and the obscure 

 seedling above mentioned, all of our present excellent list of 

 twenty-five varieties of apples has been since evolved. Even 

 greater progress has been made in developing varieties of plums, 

 for not one of the many excellent varieties we now enjoy were 



