486 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



State Horticultural Society ; Prof. R. A. Emerson, Lincoln, Neb- 

 raska State Horticultural bociety; Frank E. Pease, Des Moines, 

 Iowa State Horticultural Society; J. E. Purdy, Mason City, North- 

 eastern Iowa Horticultural Society ; E. D. Cowles, Vermillion, 

 South Dakota State Horticultural Society. 



The President : Now I will call up the delegates in the order 

 in which they are named in this report. Dr. T. E. Loope, of Wis- 

 consin, I know is a very valuable member ; I found him so at Osh- 

 kosh, and it pleases me very much indeed to see him over here. I 

 want you all to become acquainted with Dr. Loope while he is here. 

 He is not like the Frenchman who had to have the lady introduced 

 to him before he would save her from drowning; you can speak 

 to him without an introduction, and he will not take offense. 



Dr. T. E. Loope (Wisconsin) : Mr. President, Fellow Horti- 

 culturists, Ladies and Gentlemen : I am very glad to be here, or 

 else I should have stayed at home. I am much pleased with the 

 charming time I am having here and the many pleasant people I 

 have met. I feel perfectly at home because I am a horticulturist, 

 and that reminds me that to be a horticulturist requires one to have 

 a vivid imagination, great expectations and infinite patience and per- 

 sistence. So I am a horticulturist with the rest of you. In lis- 

 tening, as far as you have gone with your program, I think you 

 have all been in the same hne of thought with me, in that you 

 have all got vivid imaginations, and I do not know but some of 

 you beat me, because you tell some big stories, but I have tried to 

 keep up my end so far as I have been able to do so. I have been 

 a horticulturist in practice all my life, and I know but very little 

 about it, but what I do know I think I know very hard, and 

 may be I am wrong. But, to be serious, there is another thing in 

 connection with this matter that I believe in, and that is a man who 

 is a practical horticulturist gets down nearer to Mother Earth, 

 and that is nearer nature, because you all come from that Mother 

 Earth and you have got to go back there, and you might as well 

 become acquainted with her while alive. But there is another 

 thought there. The artificial life that comes to people that live by 

 themselves and in their business in cities does not conduce to things 

 to which I think horticulture conduces. It is a fact that those men 

 who have lived their lives in the city, who have been in business and 

 have secured a competence, almost always go back to the country, 

 build themselves homes and begin to be more natural. A man who 

 is a horticulturist really and truly is a genuine man, and the nearer 

 you get to nature the more genuine you will be. You may be as 

 "cranky" as some of you are — and I thought we had lots of them 

 in Wisconsin, but we cannot compare with Minnesota — but if you 

 are all cranks you are genuine. I thank you. (Applause.) 



The President : We are very much pleased with the speech we 

 have heard and shall be glad to get intimately acquainted with him. 

 What he said about big stories is doubtless true, but in one way 

 they are a little ahead of us, they can embellish them a little more 

 than we can. If they find a story needs something to help it out 

 and make it a better one that thing is surely coming. (Laughter.) 



