PRESIDENT S ANNUM. ADDRESS. 23 



overshadow everything-. Fruits and flowers tastefully arranged 

 make extremely popular exhibits ; if they are not .s^iven their 

 proper place, our own littleness and inefficiency are but duly adver- 

 tised. 



In making- exhibits of fruit we should never lose sight of the 

 fact that attractiveness is the first and most important matter to 

 keep in mind, for it is the education of the public through the eye 

 that is the object of all such exhibitions, and nothing that will of- 

 fend the eye should be given a place anywhere. Through what- 

 ever route it may come it is the money of the public that pays the 

 premiums, and if our exhibits attract the public we need never fear 

 but that the premiums will come our way. The policy of strict and 

 undeviating- honesty in all exhibits is the only safe and comfort- 

 able one to follow; neither judge nor superintendent is long de- 

 ceived, and even a state fair premium is a poor thing to take in ex- 

 change for an honorable reputation. 



There is no horticultural development within the past ten years 

 of more importance to the state than the wonderful growth of our 

 nursery interests. Before that time the larger share of nursery 

 stock sold here was grown at points more or less distant, and much 

 of it ill adapted to our climate. We now have within our borders 

 several large establishments, supplied with the most complete mod- 

 ern facilities, growing large quantities of general nursery stock, and 

 there has also sprung up in many places smaller nurserits that are 

 supplying a good share of the local trade. This is a grand step for- 

 ward. The very fact that a tree is grown within our state is not 

 only prima facie evidence of its adaptability to our climate, but that 

 it is free from many noxious diseases that seem to be gaining ground 

 abroad. 



In my address two years ago I mentioned the importance of 

 a more careful selection of seed in growing ornamental and forest 

 trees. Scarcely a month has passed since then that has not in 

 some new way forced the importance of this matter upon my at- 

 tention. Hardiness, rapidity 'and style of growth, c-haracter of foli- 

 age and value of timber are all controlled by it. Is it not a monu- 

 mental pity that today the price and not the strain of seed is the con- 

 trolling influence with seedling growers in making their purchases 

 of seed? And this condition of things is sure to continue until 

 the public has been educated to the idea that there is as much 

 diiTerence in Scotch pine, for instance, as there is in varie- 

 ties of dent corn, and that, considering the longer period that the 

 pine occupies the land, the matter of good seed is a hundred times 

 more important. 



