HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 61 



an Eastern, "Western, a Northern and a Southern Minnesota 

 horticultural society and such ones as may be successfully run, 



Mr. Underwood. Let me clinch what I said awhile ago in re- 

 gard to our reports. If you have put fifty cents into the cost of 

 a membership in your society and made it a success, while at 

 Mankato with no fee at all they have made a failure, why would 

 it not be better still to charge a dollar and make it still more of 

 a success? 



Mr. Harris. I am glad to see Mr. Underwood hit my friend 

 Sias, as he deserves to be hit once in awhile. I wanted the fee 

 made a dollar and to see the Southern Minnesota Society built 

 up so that it might divide the honors with the State Society. 



Mr. Terry. Mankato counts herself as being the metropolis of 

 Southwestern Minnesota, and in starting an organization she 

 called it by the name of the Southwestern Horticultural Society. 

 'Now, I belong to that portion of the state, have corresponded a 

 great deal with different parties in that section of the state, in 

 Mankato and Blue Earth county, and it is a surprise to me that 

 I have to come to Minneapolis to find out that we have a south- 

 western horticultural society. 



The gentlemen who have spoken on this subject it seems to me 

 are clinching it stronger and stronger. It does take money to 

 carry on this work if it is to be better in the future than in the 

 past. Everything we undertake requires money to carry it on. 

 But, fortunately, this is one of the things that it seems as though 

 a kind Creator had made so natural for us that it should not 

 cost so very much to start in it as in some other things. 



If fifty copies of our reports have been sent to Mankato where 

 are those copies now ? It does seem as though some of the fruit 

 ought to be seen in every case. Mankato has other counties 

 around it that have added to its prosperity, counties that have 

 large dairy and other interests, and they have held out their 

 hands to support Mankato, but they haven't been asked to lend 

 their support in this enterprise of starting a district society there. 



Again, in my own case I had to be iutroduqpd to your State 

 Society by a gentleman in Central Illinois. I was in Central 

 Illinois when a gentleman produced a copy of your reports, and 

 I found out for the first time that we had a live and prosperous 

 State Society here in Minnesota, and as I examined its pages I 

 felt encouraged at the instruction received therefrom. I believe 

 I should have often gone astray but for the system that my place 

 shows from following the instruction gained largely from these 



