SO. MINN. HORT. SOCIETY. “403 
society,and aids in developing the fruit resources of the state. These 
societies are not the tax upon the time of the members that many 
benevolent societies may be that meet every few days, and since the 
state society offers to receive into full membership all who belong 
to the local society by the payment of a share of the fee into its 
treasury, it is not the extra drain upon the pocket of the local pro- 
moters that it was when our society was organized. It seems to the 
writer that as the years go on the work of the state society should 
assume more of a theoretical and scientific character and that the 
work of communicating to the masses practical progress in 
horticulture should be left very largely to the farmers’ institutes 
and local societies. 
PRESIDENTS’ ADDRESS AT ANNUAL MEETING (1897) 
S. MINN. HORT. SOCIETY. 
J. C. HAWKINS, AUSTIN. 
Fellow Members of The Southern Minnesota and Fillmore 
County Horticultural Society: 
I am pleased to greet you at the close of another year’s labor. The 
battles of 1897 have now been fought,and we meet again to taik 
over the incidents of the struggle, bury the dead, bind up the 
wounded and lay plans for the future. The work of the horticul- 
turist is indeed a warfare. He must continually fight the weak- 
nesses and diseases of plants, their want of adaptation to new en- 
vironments, insect enemies and, more than all, the vicissitudes of our 
climate. These, alas! are but a few of the foes that beset his path. 
It would be a lengthy task to name them all; every fruit grower 
knows them too well. They face them at alltimes andin all places, 
year in and year out; from the planting of the seed to the marketing 
of the fruit, there is not a day that one or more of them does not 
make an assault. Either intense cold or long continued heat, sud- 
den changes of temperature, rains, drouths, frosts, sleets, winds, 
thorns and thistles, weeds, worms and parasites, mildews and 
blights and, I will add, thieves (human and brute), railroad and ex- 
press companies, commission and middle men—each and every one 
is watching for opportunity either to destroy or to appropriate to 
‘himself the labors of the horticulturist. Thus it is seen that in 
saying his work is a battle I use no figure of speech. It is real 
earnest, incessant warfare, from which there is no escape unless a 
coward gives up the contest, folds his arms and lies down to the 
sluggard’s sleep. Action then is the mainspring of all spiritual, 
mental or physical growth. Itis, therefore, the basis on which we 
as a society, must work and develop the objects for which we are 
banded together. 
The fruit exhibit at our county fair last fall, although not large, 
attracted wide attention, and many were surprised that this county 
was able to make such an exhibit. The apples and plums were es- 
pecially fine. Weare proud of the position attained by the fruit 
growers of southern Minnesota, that we are well up the mountain 
