STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



REPORT ON EXPERIMENT STATION, 

 Prof. W. H. Jordan, Director. 



I am dowD here with a note or two on a piece of paper to make 

 m}^ report. I really don't like to be always dealing in promises to 

 pay. There are some lines of work that the Station has undertaken 

 that have brought returns and I have been able to go before the 

 farmers of the State and speak of the things we have already accom- 

 plished and not always telling what we are going to accomplish. 

 But from the nature of the case, I shall have to speak to-day, more 

 or less about \hQ future^ as well as the past. 



You remember our Station was organized in 1888. We had build- 

 ings and equipments and many things to purchase and put there 

 before we could go to work ; and very naturally, our work was along 

 those lines most talked about ;— fertilizing the soil, dairying and 

 cattle feeding ; — so perhaps horticultural work may have at first 

 received secondarj^ consideration. I think it did. 



Two years ago the Trustees of the College, in their wisdom, I am 

 confident, invited several associations of the State, to send repre- 

 sentatives to our Station that they might tell us what we had better 

 do. 



The Pomological Society sent the Secretary, who is one of those 

 insistent, persistent sort of men who donH let things alone ; and he 

 said, "do something along the line of Horticulture." He didn't seem 

 to come to say we had better^ but immediatel}^ began to enquire how 

 much money we had spent for horticulture ; and asked that question 

 all the time. And the Station, although not equipped at that time, 

 began to lay the foundation for horticultural work ; — I mean, in its 

 broad sense. 



The best thing we have, with the exception of something I will 

 mention later, is our greenhouse. I presume faults can be found in 

 it, but at the same time we think we have erected there a good plant. 



That plant house will be used this spring in starting vegetables 

 for the first time. We have a few acres adapted to large and small 

 fruits, and have set between one and two hundred apple trees, a few 

 plums and small fruits, which constitute the foundation for work 

 along the line of fruits. 



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