296 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



thougfh bloodless slaughter at the next. We have turned our ad- 

 versaries' Hank in the night only to find him sleepless and watchful, 

 drawn up in battle array across our path. But at length the cruel 

 war is over. We thank our allies who have so valiantly stood to 

 their guns, and now with good will toward all and malice toward 

 none we lay down our arms and return to our homes, after the man- 

 ner of the American citizen soldier since the government began. It 

 but remains for the women of the city to co-operate individually with 

 the health department in the working out of the details of the new 

 svstem. Let each housekeeper now do her part and the result will 

 be so manifest an improvement over the old state of things that even 

 those who have opposed the change will be glad it was made. 



"A brief resume of the circumstances which brought about a 

 solution of the garbage problem may not be without interest. The 

 work done by the women last summer in the organized wards tended 

 to make apparent the necessity of a radical change in the system of 

 garbage collection, and for some provision for the disposal of tin 

 cans, waste paper, bottles, ashes, old shoes, etc., other than by per- 

 mitting them to accumulate in alleys and vacant lots. In the busi- 

 ness wards a systematic plan of weekly inspection and report was 

 conducted from early in ]\Iay to October ist. These wards were 

 divided into districts, and a woman inspector placed over each dis- 

 trict. 



"The result of the summer's work was two fold. The appear- 

 ance of the districts covered was immensely improved and — what 

 has proved vastly more valuable — a comprehensive grasp was ob- 

 tained of the whole problem of city waste as it afifected our city and 

 the way pointed out of its solution. It was readily apparent that the 

 first thing to be done was to get rid of the contract system, and we 

 set about doing it. Our greatest strength from the first has been 

 that we were so familiar with the facts that we knew we were on 

 the right track, and the trial which has been given the health depart- 

 ment, even under adverse circumstances, since the contracts expired 

 December 31st, has served to strengthen our position. Everything 

 is now working smoothly, and we are assured that the expense will 

 fall well inside the appropriation." 



I suppose this last year the most important thing we did was' 

 to educate public opinion in favor of getting a new charter before 

 the people, and in a very quiet way we started the wheels rolling a 

 little and then worked with the committee who had the matter in 

 hand. I am not laying the credit of all this to the league, for it 

 would have been practically impossible to do the work in the time we 

 had at our disposal, as it required four-sevenths of the ballot cast, 



