502 MINNESO'TA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



of Illinois. He has a talk to give us on the subject of cold storage, 

 but first we would like to have him say a word or two of greeting, 

 and at the close he can take up the work of cold storage. 



Prof. J. C. Blair, (111) : Ladies and Gentlemen and Members 

 of the Minnesota Horticultural Society : I can assure you it is a 

 great pleasure to me to be with you and listen to your discussions 

 this morning. I had promised myself a year ago the pleasure of 

 meeting the Minnesota Horticultural Society, but when I got to Chi- 

 cago I found I could not make train connections which would permit 

 me to get to your meeting in time. So it is a peculiar pleasure to me 

 to come at this time, although it seemed I would not be able to be 

 here as early as I expected to. I see from the splendid exhibit of 

 apples down stairs and your discussion here that you are a live, 

 wide awake horticultural people. You have problems which differ 

 in many respects from those we have in Illinois and yet you are hand- 

 ling them, it seems to me, in an excellent way, and with the work of 

 this organization, banded together with the various auxiliaries, coup- 

 led with the work of the state university and experiment stations, 

 you are bound to astonish the world in years to come with things 

 that you will do. 



Now, in regard to arbor vitae, it is a fact that every eight or 

 twelve years they are badly injured by winter conditions in Illinois. 

 I remember in the spring of 1899 after that hard freeze most of our 

 arbor vitae were killed. The fall was very dry, the summer was very 

 dry, and the winter did not come on until very late. The tempera- 

 ture was very high for that season, and when the winter came there 

 was a low drop of the temperature, and it seemed as though most 

 of the arbor vitae through Central Illinois were killed as a result of 

 that condition. 



I am glad to bring greetings to you from the sister state of Illi- 

 nois and from our own horticultural society, and I hope it will be 

 possible for some of you to meet with our society this year. We 

 had a representative from your society, Mr. Underwood, with us 

 last year, and we enjoyed his talks and his presence immensely, and 

 if you cannot send Mr. Underwood to our next meeting, I hope 

 you will send some one else. 



When I stepped off the train last night at midnight and got a 

 whiff of your atmosphere, I thought, why should I make this trip 

 from Illinois up here to talk cold storage to you? Day before 

 yesterday I talked to the Indiana Horticultural Society and left at 

 midnight. The temperature was 64 degrees. There was a rain 

 pouring down heavily, with a spring-like atmosphere, and when I got 

 to Minneapolis last night the temperature was ten below. I could 

 see some justice in my trip to Indiana, but I cannot see why on earth 

 I had to come up here. (Laughter.) 



On motion of Mr. Smith the meeting adjourned. 



