516 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



step into our shoes and who should till our places when we should 

 step down and out, are all provided for. We see young men 

 and young women, even from the city, taking an interest in horticul- 

 ture. I do not believe I prophesied amiss when I said in those 

 years when we were young that sometime we would be a fruit state; 

 I do not believe that I prophesied wrong when I said I believed we 

 were going to be one of the foremost states in the production of 

 plums and apples, and, ray friends, it delights me to see the progress 

 we have made. I have almost passed three score years and ten, and 

 I do not presume I shall come to your meetings many more times. 

 I have made thirt}'- exhibits without any break at the state fair — 

 which no other man in Minnesota can say — and from a little hand- 

 ful of fruit I could bring up in a grape basket, in 1866, to the exhibit 

 of thirty or forty bushels I made this year, I can see a great deal of 

 progress. Instead of a little table holding the whole of the horticul- 

 tural exhibit, as it was then, we are now in need of a great hall, for 

 which plans are maturing now, for the purpose of showing our 

 fruits in such a wa}- that it will have a beneficial effect upon the 

 people who see it. 



And, members of the horticultural society, I feel grateful and 

 thankful to j'^ou for the uniform kindness and courtesy with which 

 I have been treated in all those thirty years past, and I trust that 

 your years may be long in this state we love so well, and that our 

 society may continue to grow, and instead of being composed of a 

 few hundred men and women scattered here and there, it will take 

 in the great masses, the agricultural masses of Minnesota, and that 

 even the laboring men may also be numbered among the members 

 of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society, and that before I leave 

 I may see it brought up to be the greatest and best horticultural 

 society in the world; and when I throw off the mantle I hope you 

 will continue to have the same desires I have had, that my prophe- 

 sies and all our anticipations may be realized. (Applause). 



Pres. Underwood: There is one thing we have overlooked, 

 that we can dispose of in a few minutes, and that is the Ques- 

 tion Box. (See index). 



Pres. Underwood: I think now this concludes everything 

 we have to do. 



On motion of Dr. Frisselle the society adjourned sine die. 



