428 ANNUAL REPORT 



too few organizations of this character in our State, and the few we 

 do have are too weak in their membership and too restricted in their 

 field of operations. Their membership ought to comprise every in- 

 telligent citizen, whether professor, merchant, artisan or farmer, who 

 is within reach of the meetings, and the work ought to cover every 

 settled portion of the county or district within its corporate bounds; 

 and I think it would add very much to the strength and usefulness of 

 these societies if they would each start and maintain an experimental 

 station, where everything new and unknown that is brought to public 

 notice could be tried and tested before nursery agents were allowed to 

 sell them to unsuspecting people. Such station would also be used for 

 originating new varieties from seeds and for improving and ameliorat- 

 iog the wild fruits that are indigenous to this climate. Do not under- 

 stand that I am finding fault with the work of the past, but that I am 

 advocating new departures for the future. 



Our State Horticultural Society is doing a good work, and I believe 

 those of you who attend its meetings or have access to its annual re- 

 ports will agree with me that there is not a better state society in the 

 Northwest, if in the whole Union. It ought to have 5,000 members. 

 It ought to be upheld and sustained by more liberal appropriations 

 from the State, and its officers ought to be constituted a State board 

 of horticulture, and under it should be placed the direction of the 

 horticultuVal experiment work of the State station and all sub-sta- 

 tions within the State, and it should have the direction of the use of 

 one-third of the amount given to our State for experimental work by 

 the general government in the Hatch bill, that it may not be diverted 

 from its proper use and may become of some little use to those for 

 whose benefit it is given. 



I am of the opinion that the State Society could be greatly 

 strengthened and its sphere of usefulness enlarged through the organ- 

 ization of three or more district societies, regularly incorporated and 

 recognized by State appropriations and a right to seat delegates in the 

 conventions of the State Horticultural and Agricultural society, 

 and a well ordered system of county societies; and I am also of the 

 opinion that this is the opportune moment for starting the work. 



Your society is old enough to throw aside swaddling clothes and 

 come out in pants and top boots. The beautiful city of Rochester 

 and the well ordered farms of Olmsted county show the imprint of 

 your work. Why not broaden and enlarge your work so as to take in 

 all Southern Minnesota? I do not mean that you should drop your 

 county organization in order to start a greater one, but that you 



