STATE HOBTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 107 



without a program for the occasion. However, the time was 

 fully and jjlt^asantly occupied with the routine business of the 

 society, sandwiched in witli volunteer speeches and congrat- 

 ulations upon the condition and progress of horticulture, and 

 the reports of delegates who had attended the meetings of other 

 societies and the late meeting of the Mississippi Valley Horti- 

 cultural Society. One evening session was devoted to the dis- 

 cussion of the future of apple culture in the more unfavored 

 regions of the Northwest. Messrs. Gibbs, Sims, Tuttle, Peffer, 

 Plumb, Kelley, and others took an active part in the discussion, 

 and the opinion of the older and best horticulturalists seemed to 

 be that the late tour for observation in Northern Europe by 

 Hon. Charles Gibb, of Canada, and J. L. Biidd, of Iowa, would 

 prove a great help in solving the great question, but that in all 

 probability, the varieties brought from Eussia would not supply 

 a sufficient number of varieties that would prove adapted to all 

 localities and situations, and that the future tree would yet be 

 originated upon our own soil, either from seeds of the best Eus- 

 sians or our best natives, or an intermarrying between the two. 

 The interesting papers read before the meeting were: "The 

 Cultivation of Chestnuts Above Forty Degrees North Latitude," 

 by A. S. Benedict, of Weyauwega; "Fruit-Growing in Florida/' 

 by J. S. Stickney, of Wauwatosa; "Eussian Apples," by A. G. 

 Tuttle, of Baraboo; "Blight on Apple Trees," by George P. 

 Peffer; and "The Flower Mission," by Mrs. H. M. Lewis, of 

 Madison. The latter was a very interesting paper, showing the 

 workings of the most beautiful of all charities in the distribu- 

 tion of flowers to the inmates of hospitals, charitable institutions, 

 the sick and poor in their homes, and the inmates of jails and 

 reformatory institutions. The society receives but six hundred 

 dollars per annum aid from the State, and the working members 

 are scattered over a wide extent of country, making it much 

 more costly than with us, to defray the expenses of summer 

 meetings, which they locate in parts of the State where they may 

 accomplish the most good, and they expend much larger sums 

 than we do in payment of premiums for the exhibition of horti- 

 cultural products. The election of officers resulted in the choice 

 of J. M. Smith, of Green Bay, for president, and Mrs. H. M. 

 Lewis, of Madison, for Secretaiy. 



After the adjournment of the Horticultural Society, we ac- 

 cepted an invitation from Mr. A. G. Tuttle to spend a day in 

 looking over and examining the apple trees in his extensive 



