316 ANNUAL REPORT. 



holds. It will powerfully mould the civilization of a great people. 

 And when the happy time shall come when every poor man's table 

 shall be laden with fruits, and every cottage as well as every villa be 

 adorned by some of the flowers and the arts of horticulture, all 

 men will recognize with generous honors the large part which this 

 great American Pomological Society, and its honored chief, now so 

 unhappily absent from our meeting, have had in the accomplish- 

 ment of so grand a result. 



President SchafFer, after some appropriate words, then read the 

 sixth sentiment of the evening: 



''Fruits and flowers of the old world," and called on Rev. J. S. 

 Macintosh, of Philadelphia. 



The address has not been reduced to writing. The speaker was 

 truly eloquent in picturing some of the most beautiful scenes of 

 England, Scotland, and the Continent of Europe. He closed by 

 comparing the fruits of America with those of the old world. 

 American fruits suffered no disgrace by his comparison. 



President Schaffier again rose and read the seventh sentiment: 



" The Pomology of the Northwest." He called on Oliver Gibbs, 

 Jr., Secretary of the Minnesota Horticultural Society. 



Mr. Gibbs spoke as follows: 



Mr. President. If you mean by this toast to include the entire 

 territory that I have in mind in attempting to respond to it — a ter- 

 ritory too large and varied to define exactly here, but which com- 

 prises that portion of the new northwest, which is usually supposed 

 to be mostly beyond, or on the verge of the fruit belt — in short 

 that territory which has attracted hundred of thousands of emi- 

 grants in the last few years, as the country for cheap lands on 

 which to make money by raising wheat or cattle, and to found new 

 homes, I should not do my subject entire injustice, were I to dis- 

 pose of it somewhat as the school boy did of his, when appointed 

 to write a composition about snakes in Ireland and tigers in Africa, 

 and who made his title answer mainly for the composition by 

 writing, "there are no tigers in Africa and no snakes in Ireland;" 

 for with the exception of some specially favored sections and some 

 of the older settled portions, the pomology of this new northwest, 

 is as yet, to say the best of it, largely experimental and not very 

 fruity. We have in some parts of this territory, a peculiar and 

 severe climate for trees and plants: intensely cold in the winter, 

 and sometimes very hot and dry in the summer — where the tem- 

 perature ranges at its lowest from 40 to 50° below zero, and at its 

 highest from 80 to 100° in shade, and the average annual pre- 

 cipitation from about 10 to 4.0 inches, according to location. 



