l8 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



names wc venerate accomplished so much for us and for the state. 

 And if they did so much under such discouraging circumstances, 

 with no past experience to guide them and a future of uncertainty 

 and doubt, with what hope and resolution ought we to meet these 

 added responsibilities and opportunities that have been given into 

 our hands. First of all let us continue our policy, of expansion and 

 make new efforts to enlarge our membership. While we would ap- 

 pear to be doing better work in this direction than our sister so- 

 cieties, we are still a long ways from reaching the masses of our 

 people. Fifteen hundred families is but a small fraction of the 

 two hundred and fifty thousand families living outside the three 

 great cities, all of whom need some form of our gospel of horti- 

 culture to make their homes a hopeful nursery of good citizenship. 



A hint dropped by Miss Evans, of Northfield, in an address to us 

 a year ago seemed specially available to the use of our society, to 

 at least one of its members. It was this : "Why is not the farmer 

 as much entitled to a winter holiday in the city as is his city cousin 

 to his regular summer outing in the country"? Now that is just 

 what this fraction of the farmers of our state are taking here this 

 week — and we know how much good it does us. We go back re- 

 freshed in mind and body after a most royal good time and veritable 

 recreation. Why not advertise widely our annual meeting as "The 

 Farmers' Holiday Week in the City," with reduced railway fare, low 

 hotel rates and all the accessories of a grand holiday outing? Why 

 should not the first week in December, with the fall work all 

 cleaned up. the barn and sheds all snuggled up for winter, and the 

 storm windows on the house, be made the general occasion for all 

 our country folk to take the most useful and joyous outing that the 

 horticultural society and the attractions of the Twin Cities can 

 afford. Our secretary has made a beginning in advertising some- 

 thing of this kind this year. Another year with your enthusiastic 

 aid and approval, we hope that this idea may begin to have a general 

 trial. 



As one most hopeful way of increasing our numbers, it seems 

 to me that we should have a general agreement that as a kind of 

 annual interest due on the capital of good ideas we have received 

 through the society, that each of us pledge ourselves to secure at 

 least one new member for the society annually. We can do this the 

 more cheerfully when we think of the benefits we are at the same 

 time conferring upon those whom we thus persuade to cast in their 

 lot with us. 



And then we must plan to add to our usefulness as well as to 

 our numbers. We must do more and better work, we must meet our 



