LETTERS FROM PROMINENT HORTICULTURISTS. 73 



mony to the excellence of the work that is being done by the Ne- 

 braska State Horticultural Society, and I feel curious to see what the 

 census will have to show as the result of that work. The federal 

 census possesses facilities for conducting investigations that are en- 

 tirely beyond the scope even of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 with the niggardly appropriation annually doled out to it, and the 

 department has very properly taken advantage of those facilities for 

 supplementing in certain important directions its own work. Of the 

 half million or more people who inspected the magnificent exhibit of 

 Nebraska products at the St. Louis fair last October, few would be- 

 lieve, and a large majority openly ridiculed the idea, that such apples 

 as were there displayed had been, or could be, raised in Nebraska. 

 You cannot reach them with your reports and they probably would 

 not believe them if you could. They will not attach any great weight 

 to the statements of any other of your state publications, but let the 

 Republic and the Globe-Democrat and the Post-Dispatch, along with 

 other leading journals of the country, quote from the census reports 

 as to the remarkable diversity of Nebraska products and as to the final 

 dissipation of the fallacy so long associated with the one-hundredth 

 meridian, and popular misconception will at once begin to disappear, 

 and the marvelous capabilities of the best agricultural state in the 

 Union (all things considered) come to be recognized. I wish the So- 

 ciety, through you, Mr. President, a most successful meeting, success- 

 ful in the promotion of good fellowship, in the interchange of prac- 

 tical knowledge, and in the elucidation of those various problems that 

 are continually presenting themselves during the development of the 

 material resources of such a state as Nebraska. With much respect, 

 I am, my dear Mr. President, 



Yours very truly, John Hyde. 



