ANNUAL WINTER MEETING. 121 



accepted the amendment, and President Underwood suggested 

 that he wanted to have Mrs. Morrison made the chairman of 

 that committee. The motion was carried unanimously, Mr. 

 Harris remarking that the society wanted a committee com- 

 posed of such people as Mrs. Morrison, and assuring Mrs Mor- 

 rison that the executive committee would pledge itself to work 

 with her in every way possible. 



President Underwood: I feel in duty bound to express to 

 Mrs. Morrison the pleasure that it gives me when she says 

 that the Massachusetts society has a home, and that it is her 

 desire to see the Minnesota State Horticultural Society have a 

 home. It would almost seem as if she and I had been in con- 

 sultation about this matter, but I assure you I have never had 

 a word with her upon this subject. As some of the members 

 know, it has been my desire for several years that we have a 

 home. We have succeeded in starting a movement now in our 

 society looking to that end, and we should be very glad to 

 look to Mrs. Morrison for her encouragment. 



I now propose "Flowers," and ask President Northrop to 

 respond. 



President Northrop. Mr President, ladies and qentlemen: — I am ac- 

 customed to speak with a great deal of freedom on some subjects, but 

 when you see me with a manuscript it is because I know nothing about 

 the matter, and therefore wrote it down. (Laughter.) Coming, as I do,, 

 after the last address, I think it is fitting for me to say it is eminently 

 proper that our honored hostess should discourse to us upon the subject 

 of the rose— the queen of flowers— beautiful in itself and in what it rep- 

 resents, for, as the poet has somewhere said— I don't know who he was nor 

 where he said it, but there is such a poet:— (laughter) 



"In every flower that blooms around 



Some special emblem may we trace; 

 Young love is in the myrtle found, 



And memory in the pansy's grace, 

 Peace in the olive branch we see, 



Hope in the half closed iris glows, 

 In the bright laurel victory. 



And lovely woman in the rose." 



Flowers are God's most noticeable protest against materialism. 

 Squashes are good, if properly cooked, but there is something material 

 about them (laughter), especially after they are inside of you. (Laughter.) 

 Beets are good, and so are various other garden vegetables of which I had 

 a traditional knowledge when I was a boy from hoeing them in the 

 garden, and of which I have a more scientific knowledge of late, from 

 eating them out here. They are valuable but they are material. Is 

 there anything material about the rose? A rose simply appeals to our 



