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62 ‘ ANNUAL REPORT. 
ordered to report at this meeting. In accordance thereof, we ask to submit the 
following: 
Ist. The address has been published and sent forth to the world as a part of 
the transactions of this society, and we recommend its careful perusal by every 
Minnesotian into whose hands it may come. 
Owing to a pressure of business, they failed to report, and were continued and 
2nd. We would call your attention to that portion of the document on page 
96, public transactions of State Horticultural Society for 1880, alluding to nur- 
serymen. To us it seems to be unwise and a great wrong that a class of men 
who are engaged in experimenting and propagating an article (viz: fruit and 
ornamental trees) which, in this new and untried climate, is very uncertain in 
its financial results, shouid be required to pay a direct and burdensome tax upon 
his growing nursery stock, while all other growing productions of the soil are 
allowed to go entirely free. There is no other industry pursued within this 
State which calls for so much skill, care and self-sacrifice, and that has done so 
much to beautify nature, bring comfort and happiness to the people, ‘and en- 
hance the value of property, and that promises so much to the future, in refine- 
ment and wealth, as horticulture, and no branch of horticulture is of so much 
importance to us, at the present time, as the nursery business. 
Without the nurseryman to test and propagate species of trees and plants, 
adapted to our climate, and encourage their planting and cultivation, the time 
is near at hand when our fertile prairies will be considred a dreary waste, unfit 
for the homes of a civilized people. After the soil has become exhausted by 
incesant cropping with wheat, and the little available timber is consumed, 
the expenses and discomforts of living would be so great that the people would 
abandon their land, and seek a more favored clime; while with their aid, beau- 
tiful homes filled with happy and prosperous inmates, groves and forests of use- 
ful timber, orchards laden with luscious fruits, and gardens of beauty, would 
spring up everywhere, and blizzards and locusts will have become a dim mem- 
ory of the past. 
Shall we, the state horticultural society, see such wrong done, and such grand 
results lost forever without making a mighty effort to right the wrong, and 
sweep away the clouds of danger that hang over ns? Nay. But in view of these 
facts, we recommend this society to memorialize the present honorable legis- 
lature of Minnesota, setting forth the facts as they exist, and asking for the en- 
actment of a law exempting from taxation all nursery stock growing within the 
state, thus placing it upon an equality with other growing crops, and to give 
every reasonable encouragement to orchard and forest tree planting. 
Third. Another matter alluded to in the address that should receive further 
notice, is horticultural literature or the dissemination of horticultural knowledge. 
A man is influenced and moulded in a great degree after the books and papers 
he reads. It is a lamentable fact that a majority of the farmers of this state 
have not free access to good libraries. do not get the transactions of this and 
other kindred societies, and that many of them do not even read an agricultural 
paper. The trashy novels that make up the bulk of the libraries of our day tend 
to raise up a generation of sharpers and idle dreamers. The hope of our state 
lies in its agriculture and horticulture. The greatness and grandness of agricul- 
ture and horticulture depends upon the intelligence of those who engage in its 
pursuit, and their intelligence can, in a great degree, be measured by the purity 
of their literature. No man ever rose to eminence in any other country without 
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