20 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



known forty years ago. While the development of varieties in 

 other fruits has not been so great 1 believe that it is safe to say 

 that the varieties of today are of nearly double the usefulness of 

 those of that period. In varieties of ornamental plants and trees 

 wonderful progress has also been made ; witness the perennial 

 phlox and peony of today and those of forty years ago, and com- 

 pare the lilacs and spireas and general nursery lists of the two 

 periods. 



In general methods we have made almost as much progress. 

 We control sunscald by shading, blight by planting immune varie- 

 ties. Diseases, in the face of which we were then helpless, we now 

 control by spraying, which was then an unknown art. In forestry 

 methods, but one was known or practiced, and that was, the most 

 wasteful and wanton destruction. We look in vain through the 

 earlier reports of our proceedings for one word that might hint 

 of any thought of forest management. Today the president of 

 the United States is a leading champion of the forest, with a fol- 

 lowing comprising the wealth and intelligence of the land, univer- 

 sity presidents and leading business men now cheerfully filling the 

 program of our forestry association. Forty years ago scientific 

 plant-breeding had scarcely been thought of, and while now we are 

 only beginning to realize the magnificent powers that the Crea- 

 tor has delegated to us, with all the beneficent results that may 

 be expected to follow for mankind, we have been profoundly in- 

 terested in what some of the prophets cf this dispensation have 

 accomplished and have gathered together a class of beginners 

 to sit at their feet and learn the deeper lessons which lie close to the 

 processes of life. 



These are some of the thoughts that come to us as we look 

 over the first forty years of the work of the society, and as we 

 think of those who have signally contributed to this progress, 

 many of them out of slender resources in education and wealth, 

 we exclaim spontaneously, "Well done! Good and faithful ser- 

 vant." 



But our chief concern is with the duties and opportunities of 

 today. We begin this fifth decade of the life of our society with 

 a membership of over two thousand, an annual appropriation of 

 $2,500, a capital of good will and appreciation by the citizens of 

 Minnesota and a confidence that comes from past successes. To 

 what ends shall we use them, and what new means shall we em- 

 ploy? 



