32 ANNUAL REPORT. bad 
The Cane Growers’ Association. 
There is another subject remotely allied to horticulture to which I will direct 
your attention. Last winter a resolution was passed at the meeting of the Am- 
ber Cane Growers’ Association and a committee appointed to confer with a like 
committee from our society, to be appointed at this meeting, if such is your 
pleasure, in view of re-organizing the two societies together for mutual aid and 
protection. Ever since the first amber cane syrup was made, Kenney and oth- 
ers have met with us and exhibited their products upon our tables. And since 
they have formed a society of their own, they still continue to hold their méet- 
ings at the same time and place where ours are held. We are ‘‘entreated not 
to leave or forsake them or prevent them from following us. Where we have 
gone they have gone, where we have lodged they have lodged, their people have 
been our people, and their God our God;”’ they have courted us and we have 
courted them, and the courtship has been very sweet indeed, and now they send 
a committee to ask us to join with them in wedlock, that the issue may be legit- 
imate. Perhaps after all love is blind, and we had better refer our case to the 
judgment of wiser and older heads. The cane interest, next to that of horticul- 
ture, is of vast and growing importance to the State, and to facilitate its rapid 
development the transactions of the society should also be published by the 
State. 
Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society. 
I will also call your attention to a society recently formed in the great Missis- 
sippi valley, which has for its object the promotion of horticulture in all its 
branches. This society is in no way intended to take the place of the old Unit- 
ed States Pomological Society, of which the venerable Marshal P. Wilder, of 
Boston, has so long been the honored president, but is the natural outgrowth of 
a country whose resources are unlimited. As an organization it is intended to 
serve more directly the interests of pomology, forestry and floriculture in that 
vast district of country implied in the name: the Mississippi Valley Horticul- 
tural Society. A preliminary convention composed of delegates from all the 
western states was held in St. Louis on the 8th day of September last, and after 
fully discussing the subject, a committee to report a plan of permanent organ- 
ization was appointed as follows: Parker Earle, of Illinois; Dr. J. A. Warden, 
of Ohio; O. M. Wiggen, of New Orleans; George Y. Johnson, of Kansas, and 
one member from Minnesota. After due deliberation this committee reported a 
constitution and permanent officers were elected, consisting of a president, first 
vice-president, secretary and treasurer. 
You will notice that according to article 3 each state society is entitled to 
elect one vice-president, whose duty will be more particularly that of an execu- 
tive committee in regard to the horticultural interests of their respective states. 
I have been requested to bring this matter before you and report your action to 
the secretary. 
Commissioner of Agriculture. 
The Ohio State Horticultural Society, at their meeting in December last, 
passed a resolution asking that the commissioner of agriculture under the new 
regime be chosen from the great agricultural region of the west, and that he 
shall be a practical business man as well as one both scientifically and practic- 
