FOURTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 177 



AFTERNOON SESSION. 



It was nearly two o'clock when the members reassembled 

 for the closing session of the meeting. A very full program 

 remained to be carried out, but before taking up the regular 

 order President Guile}' called for the reports of the several 

 special committees. 



President Gulley ; We have two or three ccommittee 

 reports to come in, some of them at least are ready, and I will 

 call first on the committee on fruit exhibits to make their 

 report. 



Mr. T. E. Cross : Mr. President, the committee did not 

 think it necessary to occupy very much of your time, and their 

 report will be very brief. We examined the tables of fruit, 

 in the Exhibition Hall, and found something like 40 varieties. 

 More or less of them were choice, and some of them were fair 

 to middling, and some of them were quite middling. As the 

 society premium list restricted to about twenty varieties for 

 awards of money premiums, the committee did not' think 

 themselves at liberty to exceed that number, and therefore 

 they only awarded the first and second prizes to some twenty 

 varieties. \\'hile some of the others were worthy of prizes, 

 still the committee did not feel empowered to award them. 

 Further than that, as the society only offered first premium 

 in money, the committee in some instances, where there were 

 several different entries of the same varity, took the liberty 

 to award a second and third premium, and though that was 

 not to be a money premium, still it signified the comparative 

 quality of the fruit exhibited. I think the exhibitors as well 

 as the visitors to this meeting, by carefully examining the 

 fruit on the table, can learn a good deal in the line of improv- 

 ing aie quality of their apples, and while, from the standpoint 

 of the society, it is desirable to have as large a collection and 

 to get as many exhiliits of fruits as possible, still at the same 



