STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 329 



carry on your work; but so long as I may be able to do so, I will be 

 most happy to aid you iu any way ia my power, aad will, as here- 

 tofore, always continue to take a lively interest in your proceedings. 

 May success ever crown all your efforts for the public good. 



And now, Mr. President, and members of this society, I would 

 like, were it not taking up too much of your valuable time, to say 

 something more on one or two topics. 



f Several members : Go on Colonel; go on.] 



T would like to express with more becoming propriety, my 

 feelings of heartfelt pleasure and gratitude, evoked by the sur- 

 prise, the honor and the distinction you have so generously asso- 

 ciated with my name, and by making its mention, an inexpungable 

 page in the horticultural history of Minnesota ; and also for men- 

 tioning it in the history of this society as worthy to be associated 

 v^ith yours, gentlemen, who are the practical horticulturists of this 

 state, and you, whose labor, above that of all others, has won for this 

 society, from the recent Congress of the most eminent horticultur- 

 ists in this country, representing the horticultural societies of the 

 United States, of the east, the west, the north and the south — has 

 won for it, I repeat, the highest recognition possible to be expressed 

 by any decisive authority, which recognition has won for this 

 society and state, the highest prize for excellence in apple and grape 

 culture, which was attested by the unanimous award of the Wilder 

 Memorial Medallion, which places this state in the front rank of 

 American Pomology, not only for what has been already accom- 

 plished, but for the assured promise of progressive improvements in 

 all branches of plant culture; for, it is successful apple growing 

 that assures in any climate successful horticulture, in general. 



The competitive exhibition of the apples of this state, of both 

 seedling and grafted trees, which was made before the late Pomo- 

 logical Congress, side by side with collections of apples from the 

 other states, the old and the new states, became, when submitted 

 to the ordinary tests of excellence, a most surprising demonstra- 

 tion, ocular and gustatory, and it was this that won for our society 

 and for Minnesota the highest award for success in apples, and 

 grape culture also. Although this distinguished award has 

 been scarcely heard of by our people, because not more fully noticed 

 in newspapers, the time must soon come, when it will be bet- 

 ter known, and its importance more deservedly appreciated, and 

 then the success already accomplished, as attested by the Wilder 

 award, will be considered as worth to this state not only hundreds 

 of thousands, but millions of dollars; and then, too, , this estimate 



