ANNUAL WINTER MEETING. 59 



The many new discoveries brought to light and susceptible of 

 being put into daily, practical use, is attracting the attention 

 of our most enterprising cultivators; and the process of tran- 

 sition from the old methods and ways of cultivation and market- 

 ing to the new, is more and more visible. "Each year new 

 inventions and wider spread intelligence have done much to 

 improve the condition and prosperity of a large class of pro- 

 ducers, but over and above all this, no one thing has done so 

 as the much steady decrease in freight rates, giving capable 

 produces and employers a wider market, and bringing local pro- 

 ducers into contact with more abler competitors than they had 

 known before." 



We owe much to railways and the facilities for rapid trans- 

 fer and wider distribution which they have provided. Edward 

 Atkinson says; "There have been single great inventions, like 

 the application of steam, which have greatly altered the condi- 

 tions of society; but there have probably never been so many 

 applications of science and invention to the common arts of life 

 as have been applied in the present generation, nor has any 

 single one ever been so patent in modifying and changing all 

 the conditions of society as the sinking of time and distance by 

 the railway system, in reducing the cost of moving farm and 

 garden products to a fraction of a cent per ton per mile, prac- 

 tically converting a wide area into a close neighborhood." 



"There is but one element of life which all have in common, 

 and that is time," and he who can teach us how to improve our 

 time to obtain the largest amount of pleasurable enjoyment 

 and beneficial usefulness to himself and his fellows should be 

 counted a benefactor of his race. 



QUARTER CENTENNIAL. 



The 3d of next October will be twenty-five years since the or" 

 ganization of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society, and it 

 would be proper for our members to come together and cele- 

 brate its quarter centennial birthday in some appropriate 

 manner. I call your attention to this fact that you may take 

 such action as is deemed best. If the next twenty-five years of 

 investigation and experiment develop our horticultural in- 

 dustries as much as the past, and our society's work extends 

 in width and length proportionately, we may expect as a pro- 

 gressive, industrious people to make great advancement in 

 horticultural art. If any of our members should be fortunate 

 enough to live to the half centennial of this society, they will 



