ANNUAL WINTER MEETING. 49 
EVENING SESSION, TUESDAY, JANUARY 19. 
The evening was called to order at 7:30 P. M., by Vice- 
President Wedge. 
Vice-President Wedge: The first thing we have on hand 
this evening is the address of welcome by the Hon. L. L. 
Wheelock. 
ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 
BY HON. L. L. WHEELOCK, OWATONNA. 
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society: 
We are glad that you have come here and we hope that you are, and 
trust that you will be happy when you go away because you have been so 
well treated at our hands. When this pleasant duty of bidding you wel- 
come to our beautiful city was assigned to me, I do not suppose that it 
was generally known how important a part I played in the organization 
of this association. In fact, I did not know it myself until I read it 
from the books. (Laughter.) 
A quarter of a century ago last September I came to the State of Min- 
nesota fresh from the orchards of western New York. When I arrived in 
Minnesota there was no such thing in existence as the Horticultual Soci- 
ety—no, not even the Fruit Growers Association. But on October 4th, 
1866, before I had been in the state six weeks, this society was organized, 
and that, too, I presume, without any knowledge on the part of these 
pioneers, such as Col. Robertson, Mr. Harris, and Col. Stevens and others, 
that I had arrived. (Laughter.) So you see how our silent influence goes 
up and out and around. 
If I were to state how I became the god-father of the Bee-Keepers 
Association I fear that I should be(e) keeping you here to long, and so merit 
a stingins rebuke, so I won’tsay anything aboutit. (Laughter.) But, 
seriously, my dear friends, we are glad to have you among us because you 
have done so much for us; because you have done so much to make our 
homes and their environments pleasant and beautiful; homes that are 
calculated to make good neighbors and reliable citizens. Twenty-five 
years ago, aS we remember—those of us who have been here so long and 
longer—when we looked out upon these prairies we saw the cabins and 
dugouts in their desolation without a shrub even to protect them. At 
least this was the general rule. Perhaps some settler more fortunate 
than the others had located his cabin in a grove of scrub oaks or poplars, 
and possibly some few early settlers were cultivating with a good deal of 
difficulty a grove of Lombardy poplars. I need not say to you what time 
has wrought, or what we now have about our dwellings—trees and flower- 
ing shrubs in almost all varieties, flowers and small fruits in abundance. 
We have not made that progress that we are going to, and that we would 
have liked to, in raising apples and pears, plums and cherries, and such 
other fruits; but we are more of a fruit growing state than many of us 
believe. In 1885, at the great Cotton Centennial at New Orleans, I was 
particularly interested in the fruit display. I was looking out for some 
country where I could locate, in which I could get plenty of delicious 
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