State Horticultural Society. 



Louisiana, Mo., October 8, 1902. 



D. A. Robnett. We thank 3-011 for your kind favor, we appreciate 

 your fairness and consideration and it is a great satisfaction to have such 

 a man at the head of the Mo. State Horticultural Society. Our C. M. 

 S. has received a friendly letter from our mutual friend Prof. Whitten, 

 which he fully appreciates as he enjoyed being with the professor very 

 much, in fact Col. Evans, Mr. Flournoy and others. Again we say it is a 

 satisfaction to have an honest man in a public position which means so 

 much to the great State of Missouri. 



STARK BROS., N. and O. Co., 



W. P. STARK, Treas. 



Louisiana, September 9, 1902. 



D. A. Robnett. It is needless to add that we shall be glad to do 

 everything in our power to aid the committee in getting the real facts 

 in the case. 



STARK BROS., N. and O. Co., 



C. M. STARK, President. 



The following letter gives Mr. Flournoy's report in November, 1902 : 

 "While on a recent trip to Arkansas with others of the committee to 

 visit the original Black Ben Davis trees growing on Mr. Bain's place in 

 Washington county, to show what the Black Ben Davis might be in 

 variations, I took on the 24th of September two small inferior striped 

 apples from two of the trees. The apples were striped just as any 

 ordinary Ben Davis. I took the only striped ones found ; this may ac- 

 count for others, who might come after, not rinding such fruit and 

 possibly I might have found more such specimens if such ones had not 

 been removed by previous visitors." 



From these reports and records it is plainly seen that the Executive 

 Committee and the State Society have been pursuing the right and 

 proper course to help simplify and correct the nomenclature of our apples. 

 Then all these insinuations and innuendoes and attacks and charges 

 made upon the Horticultural Society, the Executive Committee in gen- 

 eral, the Treasurer especially, and the Secretary in particular, were made 

 because the Society reasserted the finding of the committee and re-af- 

 firmed its belief in the justice and uprightness of its decisions. 



If there ever were any doubts about the similarity of these two 

 apples there is certainly now, no question in the minds of the Exe- 

 cutive Committee that they are identical and the Society has done only 

 the right thing in endorsing their former decision. 



