88 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Mr. Harris: I move that we accept and adopt the report of 
the committee on president’s address. 
The motion was duly seconded and carried. y 
Mr. Thayer: I wish at this time toemphasize more strongly 
one department in your horticultural work. It is the formation 
of more local societies. I believe that it is one of the most im- 
portant factors that you have for building up horticultural 
knowledge in this state. We have adopted this plan in Wiscon- 
sin, and we are organizing new societies there all the time. 
We find it is of very great benefit to us. The horticulturists, 
in these days, need what every other business. needs—that is, 
organization. The farmer needs it, and the horticulturist 
needs it. 
To show you some of the benefits that could be derived from 
the organization of local societies, I will give you the following 
illustrations: Let half a dozen people in the same neighbor- 
hood adopt a simple constitution that may be written on a sin- 
gle piece of paper no larger than your hand; have their 
regular meetings and pursue the subjects as recommended in 
your president’s annual address. In Wisconsin, our society 
furnishes those short constitutions and by-laws for the govern- 
ment of the local societies. A society of that kind can be or- 
ganized, and they can subscribe for papers and get all of the 
reports and form a small library for general use. Another ad- 
vantage of such an organization, even if there be only ten per- 
sons in it, may be found in the making of a purchase for the 
entire neighborhood. I have in my pocket a price list from an 
eastern nurseryman, according to which it would cost $52.50 to 
plant a farmer’s garden, as recommended in this illustration of 
mine, of the best way to plant a quarter of an acre. Now by 
organization—allowing the secretary of the society to order the 
plants for the entire ten members, they can get them of any 
responsible nurseryman or fruit grower in Minnesota for $12, 
for each garden—a saving in one society of ten members of 
more than $400. Now that is only one of the benefits to be de- 
rived. This is the twenty-fifth anniversary of your society, and 
it is a good time to start areform of this kind. Iwill make you 
a proposition that looks towards the establishment of your local 
societies. If this society will adopt some means by which the 
subject of horticulture can be brought to the attention and put 
in practice by the young people of the state—by the children of 
the state, I will promise to donate to the first 1,000 children 
that can be interested in that way 6,000 strawberry plants from 
