ANNUAL WINTER MEETING. 45 



RESPONSE TO ADDRESS OF WELCOME 



BY CLARENCE WEDGE, ALBERT LEA. 



In behalf of this society and of the horticulturists of Minne- 

 sota, I thank you for this kind and cordial welcome. 



We have come from our cottages among our fields and gar- 

 dens, the orchards and vineyards of our state. We have come * 

 from the quiet of farm homes and the simplicity of country 

 firesides, and we have entered a new world, borne by the hot 

 breath of the engines of commerce, carried along these streets 

 by the force of electric fires, we have arrived at the majestic 

 portals of this noble edifice. After a year of toil among the 

 works of nature, we are met today among the palaces of art, 

 and we enjoy and rejoice in them. 



Your busy streets, high walled by the store rooms of trade, 

 the broad arches that span the mighty river, whose powers 

 have been harnessed to your use, your mills and factories, 

 your schools and churches, and that wilderness of roofs and 

 chimneys, domes and steeples, that is spread before us as we 

 look out from these lofty walls, are all to us a wonder and an 

 admiration. 



Yes, we rejoice in this your magnificence, and the more for 

 we know that this is no foreign city, but Minneapolis, our me- 

 tropolis, our market place. 



We hear much of the fight between labor and capital, of the 

 struggle between the farmer and the monopolist, but we trust 

 no feeling of envy stirs our breasts as we look upon the pro- 

 ducts of your enterprise and thrift. For we know that these 

 great works are not for you alone but for all of us. For we 

 know that you have helped us, that it is here our shares are 

 moulded, our reapers fashioned and the thousand implements of 

 husbandry perfected. For we know that our boasted indepen- 

 dence left us when we dropped the sickle for the harvester and 

 the flail for the bustling thresher. 



'Tis but a few nights ago that we heard the children's merry 

 carol "Peace upon earth good will to men," and the echoes and 

 the lessons of the happy Christmas time go sounding down the 

 year. Yes, the bands of brotherhood are growing stronger, 

 foreign lands are coming nearer, the days of clannishness are 

 passing. 



We meet you then today as brother co-laborers for the com- 



