SUMMER MEETING, 1897. 261 



in placing- Minnesota where it is today. Wherever we g^o now, in 

 whatever part of the state, we find that we have hosts of friends 

 all doing- their utmost to make our meeting's pleasant. In look- 

 ing back to the places where we have held our meetings winter 

 or summer, everybody has tried to make it pleasant for us. We 

 are not guests here. We come here to our home. This farm belongs 

 lo us. This school is our school. We have a share in it. It is a de- 

 light to go around through the state and hear the farmers talking 

 about our experiment station, our agricultural school. So while the 

 people here do their best to make our stay pleasant, still we are not 

 guests. This is our place and the people belong to our family, and it 

 is a delight to coine here. I see my old friend Merrick is here to talk 

 peace. Wherever horticulture goes peace goes in her footsteps. 

 We do not have any such quarrelsonae times as they have in the 

 United States senate, but there is au aroma of quiet energy wher- 

 ever we go, wherever we meet. I am glad that we are seeing year 

 b}'- year our little band increase. When I came here forty years ago 

 and saw the country everywhere stretched out wild and wooly,! could 

 not look forward into the future and see what has come from it all. 

 A good many are here to-day that have been here frotn territorial 

 times. When I came first we went by Minneapolis. There was 

 not enough of it to pay us to look to see it. Sunrise City and 

 Watab were the prominent places then. I remember well when I 

 first came on the hill where Cheever's Tower was situated. This 

 legend confronted me. * Pay your dime and climb.' Every thing- 

 was dear in the state then, and this was the only cheap thing in 

 ihe countr3^ I paid my dime and climbed to the top, where I 

 looked over a beautiful country, although it was wild and deso- 

 late compared with what we see now. Here, then, I saw nothing 

 but a wild wilderness, but now there is a great population with 

 all the attendant changes in its train. Fruits have come forward 

 with just as great strides as the population has. We first thought 

 a few wild prickly gooseberries a great thing-. We can now go 

 out into our gardens and pick gooseberries and currants by the 

 bushel. So with raspberries, blackberries, etc. So with the trees. 

 I have four hundred in my orchard, and every tree has promise 

 of soiuething better farther on. I think we have reason to thank 

 God and take courage for what we have and for what we expect 

 in the future. It is no time now, no matter what there maj^ have 

 been in the past, no time now for discouragement. The sky has 

 cleared. Good times about us. Peace and plenty and prosperity 

 are to be around us now on forevermore." 



REV. J. S. MERRICK. 



Rev. John S. Merrick, of New York, representative of the American 

 Peace Society, was called upon to say a few words about his old ac- 

 quaintance, Mr. A. J. Downing, the famous horticulturist. Mr. Mer- 

 rick had often been at Mr. Downing's home at Newburgh on the 

 Hudson, one of the most beautiful spots in the whole country. Mr 

 Downing laid out the grounds of the Smithsonian Institute, and 

 much of the development of the beautiful in horticulture is owiug- 

 to his writings. He accomplished a great work in the short space 



