22 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 



thtoug'h the local newspapers. That this would correct the wrong- 

 and inake such operations unprofitable there is no doubt. This 

 plan, successfully carried out, would require the co-operation of our 

 inembership, but with our list so g^enerally scattered throughout 

 the state it ought to be practical. If the society sees fit to author- 

 ize some such plan, the machiner)- of the secretary's office can 

 easily be put into operation to make it effective. 



There.are otherjfields open for new effort which I will not take 

 up your time to consider. 



The membership of the society for the year just closed stands as 

 follows: 



Annual members 463 



Life members 52 



This is only a slight increase over last year. On account of the 

 close times, it has not been deemed best to go to the expense of mak- 

 ing any special effort to increase the roll, and indeed the work of 

 the secretary's office is developing so rapidly that no special efforts 

 are found to be necessary to profitably employ the time. The post- 

 age bill for the year past, amounting to $105.70, will give an idea of 

 the correspondence of this office, and this does not include the cost 

 of sending out the volumes of reports, which are nearly all for- 

 warded by express at a slight saving of expense over the postage 

 rate. Two large book files of letters have been thought worth sav- 

 ing during the year out of, probably, two thousand letters received. 



I take pleasure in referring to the valuable service rendered to 

 our cause last winter by Mr. Clarence Wedge in his capacity of in- 

 stitute lecturer, independent of his work on the platform, in distrib- 

 uting fifty and upwards of our magazines and several hundred 

 fruit lists at every appointment, in all some 1,200 magazines and 

 9,000 circulars. We hope to continue this good work the present 

 winter, through Mr. Wedge's successor in the institute corps, Mr. 

 E. J. Cutts. 



The societ5'' librarj'^ is rapidly becoming a very important element 

 in the permanence of our organization. During the year 1897, 121 

 volumes have been added to our shelves, making in round numbers 

 600 books in the library, not counting duplicates nor any of the 

 large number of pamphlets and periodicals. Through the courtesy 

 of the state officers, 100 paper covered volumes have lately been 

 bound in black cloth, including a number of horticultural periodi- 

 cals thought worthy of preservation, so that there are now very few 

 paper-covered books in the library. More than thirty magazines or 

 papers, largely devoted to horticulture, are received regularly in ex- 

 change for our monthly, and reports as issued are received from 

 forty-six experiment stations in this country. Many of these are 

 worthy of preservation and will be bound and find a permanent 

 place in the library. At the current rate of increase the library and 

 office are likelj"- to outgrow the present accommodations in another 

 year and make expansion in some direction a necessity. The plates 

 used in our magazine are rapidly increasing as well. Manj^ of these 

 have proved of value to us in the demand for their use by publica- 

 tions outside the state. Engravings of a large number of our tnem- 

 bers have already been made and used, and they have been pre- 



