268 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



SUMMER MEETING OF THE MINNESOTA STATE 



HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 



1896. 



(Stenographer's Report.) 



The meeting was called to order by the president, J. M. 

 Underwood, at 2 o'clock P. M., on Friday, June 19, 1896. 



President J. M. Underwood: — It is with great pleasure I 

 meet you all here today, as our summer meetings are, in a 

 great many respects, more enjoyable than our winter meetings. 

 There are things we enjoy in the summer time which we do 

 not have at our winter meetings. I find this day, particularly, 

 a favorable and pleasant occasion for our society. We have 

 an unusually large attendance today, and it is a repetition of 

 what has always been our good fortune, to have a beautiful 

 day. I do not know that we have ever had a summer meeting 

 that it was not particularly pleasant, and this is no exception to 

 the rule. Now, we have for our program the subject of forestry; 

 I will say that we are to emphasize some of the features of 

 forestry, some of the interests of forestry, and we have 

 arranged our program along that line. I shall be pleased 

 to call upon Mr. McGinnis to speak to us on forest protection 

 for Minnesota, and hear some resolutions which he will offer, 

 bearing upon that subject. 



Mr. D. R. McGinnis, secretary of the St. Paul Commercial 

 Club is introduced to the meeting. 



ADDRESS OF D. R. M'GINNIS. 



Mr. President, ladies and afentlemen of the Minnesota State 

 Horticultural Society: It is a source of g-reat pleasure and a matter 

 of pride for me to have the honor of appearing- before this assembly 

 today, representing an interest which I consider of great import- 

 ance to the state of Minnesota. I am in the deepest S3'mpathy with 

 the man who wrote that trees are "God's pillars." Not only from a 

 sentimental standpoint need we look at this question of forest 

 protection, but also from the standpoint of the practical man of the 

 present age. But from a sentimental standpoint, from a standpoint 

 of those who love beauty, I will say it before this assemblage, if it is 

 not more pleasant, if life does not consist largely in the pleasure 

 brought about by the tall kinds of grasses called trees — because a 

 tree is only another variety of grass. Which would you prefer — is 

 there one out of ten in this audience before me now that would 

 prefer to live in an arid desert without a tree in sight to break the 

 monotony, or would they prefer to live in a verdant land such as we 

 look upon today? From the standpoint of enjoyment — and that is 

 almost as much as there is in life — comfort and enjoyment and the 



