166 ANNUAL REPORT. 



relates to hospitalities, I desire to add on my own account the* 

 warmest acknowledgments you can think of, to the members of 

 the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and to the citizens of 

 Philadelphia, for the many courtesies received. The half days car- 

 riage ride about the city, the visit to the public buildings, the art 

 galleries, the Central Park and Girard College, and the banquet at 

 the new Union League Club House, Friday evening, September 

 14th, are all very pleasantly remembered. 



One of the disappointments of the meeting was the absence of the 

 President, Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, and the expected pleasure de-^ 

 nied some of the delegates and members of making his acquaintance 

 there. This was the greater disappointment to me from my knowl- 

 edge of the fact that had it not been for his efforts to have us rep- 

 resented there, our fruits would probably never have been collected,, 

 and possibly no delegate have gone; and I was anxious to have him 

 see our fruits and enjoy them. Early in the winter I sent him a 

 box of our Wealthy apples for inspection, with the compliments of 

 the Minnesota State Horticultural Society, and received the follow- 

 ing letter of acknowledgment: 



LETTER FROM PRESIDENT WILDER. 



Dorchester, Mass., Dec. 4th, 1883. 

 My Dear Sir: 



Thanks ! thanks ! for the box of apples which have come to hand 

 and mouth in most perfect condition. I am surprised with their 

 beauty and excellence, and shall exhibit a dish of them next Satur- 

 day before the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Minnesota 

 was much honored by the exhibition of her fruits at the session of 

 the American Pomological Society, in Philadelphia, which I very 

 much regret that I could not have seen. If Minnesota, though far 

 to the north, can produce such fruits, she will at least, in apples,^ 

 be able to compete favorably with the most favored states of the 

 Union, and her government could not do a better thing than to fos- 

 ter and encourage the cultivation of fruit wherever it may succeed 

 within its jurisdiction, and I hope that Minnesota will come up 

 with fruits, and what is better still, with her noble men, in full 

 force, at the meeting of the American Pomologial Society in Michi- 

 gan, in 1885, and may I be there to give them a hearty welcome. 



The Wilder Medal, which your State so richly merited for it* 

 exhibition at the lat^ meeting of our society, will soon be en- 

 graved and forwarded to you. 



MARSHALL P. WILDER, 

 Pres't American Pomological Society. 

 OLIVER GIBBS, Jr., Esq., 



Secretary, &c., &c. 



