Journal of 



Minnesota State Horticultural Society, 



Dec. 5-8, 1902. 



TUESDAY MORNING SESSION. 



The meeting was called to order in the Sunday school auditorium 

 of Plymouth church, Minneapolis, at 9:30 a. m., by the president, 

 W. W. Pendergast, of Hutchinson. 



The invocation was offered by Rev. Dr. Stevens of Minneapolis. 



The president proceeded to open the meeting by reading the 

 "President's Annual Address," preceded by the following remarks : 

 Fellow Members of the Minnesota Horticultural Society : 



I am very glad to see so many of our old friends and co-workers 

 here at the commencement of the first forenoon. That is not all. 

 We are glad to see the others that are here. We are glad to see 

 the old ones, and it gives us a great deal of pleasure to see such a 

 mixture of new faces among the old. 



We have had nothing to discourage us during the past year. 

 Everything starids a little better than it did a year ago today. Some 

 of our crops have been failures or partial failures, but that always 

 happens in any kind of business. Even in southern Florida they 

 have their fruit failures, and they are a great deal worse than our 

 fruit failures in Minnesota. 



Now in opening I would say to my fellow members of the Min- 

 nesota Horticultural Society : 



President's annual address, W. W. Pendergast. (See index.) 



We are offered a hearty welcome by Minneapolis as usual, and 

 an especially welcome and hearty greeting by two of her warm 

 hearted citizens, for all of which we entertain feelings of the deepest 

 gratitude. In fact, the light is breaking all around us. People 

 everywhere are beginning to appreciate the mighty work that has 

 been done by the people who are interested in the growing of fruits 

 and flowers and trees. They begin to see how much of the sweet- 

 ness and joy and comfort of life come from those very things 

 which in times gone by, when everything depended upon getting 

 enough bread to keep the wolf from the door, could not be done. 

 Now I feel as though we were doing a great work here. The peo- 

 ple feel tender toward this society, not only people engaged in hor- 

 ticultural pursuits, but the whole people of the state. It is easier 

 to get a dozen people to become members of the horticultural 

 society in the state of Minnesota today than it was to get one a 

 dozen years ago. Almost every one that I ask and take time to set 

 forth the advantages that will accrue to him and to his neighbors 

 from the work that this great society is doing, almost always, 



