Minnesota STATE HorTicuLTuRAL Society. 87 
any of us now assembled should then be living to help celebrate that day of our 
existence as a society, may they not point with pride to the orchards, vine- 
yards and fruit gardens, beautiful lawns and shade and ornamental trees along 
_ our principal streeis, roads and avenues, grounds decorated with evergreens, 
‘shrubbery and flowers, glass structures well filled with fruits, flowers and exotic 
plants, as a part of what the Minnesota State Horticultural Society has accom- 
plished? Now in order to do this we must enlist the masses to help us work. 
We must secure local societies in every county, town, city and school district. They 
must hold their meetings monthly, or oftener, and must exhibit at the same their 
fruits, flowers and vegetables in their season, compare notes and modes of 
cultivation, and from their united experience select the best varieties and modes 
of treatment to be presented to this Society at its winter meetings. Then from 
these varied reports from all parts of our State, we will have a basis to work 
upon, something from which to select what is best for the State at large and for 
special locations. é 
At a former meeting there was a committee appointed with this in view—to 
draft and prepare a blank form of constitution and by-laws and have the same 
printed so that they could be distributed throughout our State and help to facilitate 
the organization of such societies. I sincerely hope that committee has per- 
formed that duty, and that we may soon have many local societies. May I not 
again call your attention to the necessity of a State Entomologist, and through 
you, if you should think best, the attention of the Governor and Legislature? 
I think one should be appointed and paid by the State, which could be done at a 
very small cost in comparison to the benefit to be derived therefrom. Could 
not some of the professors or teachers of some of the State institutions of learn- 
ing, that are competent and willing, with a few hundred dollars added to their 
salary, perform the duties of State Entomologist, and thus not burden our already 
heavy tax payers to any extent, and still be of much and lasting benefit to our 
entire State? 
Permit me to again call your attention to the subject of cranberry culture, 
believing as I do that it is one of the great resources of our state. With thou- 
sands, if not millions, of acres of the best cranberry marshes in the United States 
lying idle and useless, should we not urge their improvement, that they may be- 
come productive, and help to increase our exports as well as the health, wealth and 
comfort of our citizens? Cannot capital and labor from the older states and 
men that understand it be induced to take hold of the matter? I think it would 
pay our State or our railroad companies to take hold and to donate a few sections 
of suitable lands in small tracts, upon certain stipulations that the parties should 
plant and properly cultivate in cranberries for a series of ten years or more, and 
thus give the business a start, and not let these lands lay dormant the next twenty 
or thirty years. When we take into consideration that as our country settles up 
and our cities and towns grow in wealth and population the demand for the 
cranberry constantly increases; that they now have to be imported in large quan- 
tities to supply this demand; that our once full supply of wild fruits, cranberries 
especially, is constantly declining as the country becomes settled up; that the 
marshes are being filled up by the washings from plowed ground, and run 
over by the herds of cattle that roam by the ten thousand over the unfenced 
portions of our State, tending to exterminate the once abundant crop of wild 
fruit. When we take into consideration that the cranberry properly ripened, 
and grown and handled with care, can be kept in a fresh state, without canning 
or other expensive process, for one year or more, and that it can be sent to distant 
