TWENTY-SIXTH SESSION. 
25 
before we attempted to make fair sailing. It was concluded that it would 
be better to try to get together all the good varieties, thinking that the bad 
ones in contact with the good would be, as bad always is in contact with 
good, conquered. So we went on for successive years until there was devel- 
oped the catalogue you now have, containing many varieties, some of which 
are good everywhere, while some are good in some places and bad in others. 
It was a great pleasure to me this morning, to listen to the remarks on 
“Culture” and to realize how far you are in advance of the oid system of 
cultivating fruits’ I think we will benefit by what has been said. I think 
that the future is promising except for those annoyances which come upon 
us from time to time. We men think ourselves full of power (and our race 
has accomplished wonders in the world), and yet we are conquered by little 
insects that are scarcely visible to the naked eye. They come upon us in all 
shapes. When I was young we had, in the locality in which I lived, plenty 
of plums, peaches, cherries, apricots and nectarines. At this day the apricots 
and nectarines there are things of the past entirely; they might as well be 
classed as forgotten fruit; and this is largely true as to plums and cherries 
also. To be sure we have not been so apt in resources as our Rochester 
friends, who conquer the insects by shaking them off. The people generally 
through our country will not do that. These pests have affected the growth 
of fruit; and growers, those w 7 ho buy trees, have not the knowledge which 
would enable them to deal with the evil successfully. Now, after the fruits 
of pears, apples and some other fruits, have escaped in a great measure, 
there comes along a scale which destroys the life of the tree. The growers 
are fighting to get rid of it, and some are desirous of taking more serious 
measures than have been taken; but there it is and we are in this bad con- 
dition. Some say they will not plant trees because they are troubled in this 
way. But that is all wrong. They must plant them and they must get rid 
of these insects. I know it is not possible to get rid of them entirely, but 
we are compelled to fight them all the time. I suppose, however, that if they 
should be conquered, some other pest would take their place. 
Once I had a great fondness for owning an orange grove. I thought it 
would be a grand thing to have one in Florida, where I could spend my win- 
ters and repose in the shade of my trees. I bought a grove and grew oranges 
for some time; but I found there were three kinds of scale that I had to fight 
in various ways. Then I encountered the ants, which girdled the tree near 
the root, about an inch from the ground. Next there came a large grass- 
hopper which would cut off half the leaves; and so it went on with insect 
after insect until I became so tired of them that I sold out. So it is all the 
way through, as the world goes on. With all the nice things and all the bless- 
ings there are in the creation that God has made for us, our life is a con- 
tinual struggle; we have to contend against and fight evils of all kinds and 
will continue to do so during our natural lives. I suppose that every strug- 
gle we make gives us greater strength and power to fight still harder. The 
future is encouraging; the existence of this Society and its growth are evi- 
dences that we are destined finally to succeed and that we will overcome all 
these troubles as surely as the sun rises. (Applause.) 
President Watrous: Another gentleman who labored all through the past 
and, I believe, from the beginning of the fifty years of this Society, is Mr. 
George Ellwanger, of the great nursery firm of Ellwanger & Barry, the most 
famous on the American continent. We have here a letter from Mr. Ell- 
4 
