24 
AMERICAN POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
with arrangements already perfected for the stereopticon lectures, in the- 
evening at Horticultural Hall, he withdrew his motion and intimated that he 
would renew it later for the meeting on Friday evening. 
On motion of Prof. Alwood, the hour of adjournment was- fixed at 5- 
o’clock p. m., and the time and place of reassembling at 8 o’clock p. m., at 
Horticultural Hall. 
Mr. W. C. Strong, from the Committee on Credentials, reported that cer- 
tificates had been received showing 129 delegates present. By way of veri- 
fying the list he read the number reported by each State delegation. 
Several delegates called attention to omissions in the list and mentioned 
additional names, w^hicli increased the total number reported by the Com- 
mittee. 
Dr. F. M. Hexamer, Chairman of the Committee on Awards, requested that 
each exhibitor in the fruit display promptly hand to the committee at once a 
memorandum of his exhibit, in order that the exhibits might be identified by 
the Committee. 
President Watrous called attention to the presence of Mr. Samuel B. Par- 
sons, of Flushing, Long Island, N. Y., who, lie said, had been present at the 
birth of the Society fifty years ago, and who, having helped to rock its cradle 
in infancy, train it up in its youth and labor with it in its manhood, was still 
with it at the beginning of its second half century of existence. 
REMINISCENCES. 
BY SAMUEL B. PARSONS, FLUSHING, N. Y. 
Mr. Parsons (upon the invitation of the President) came forward and 
responded as follows: 
“Gentlemen— The past fifty, years seem to me like a day that is past. 
Looking back upon its beginning, I can recollect with great pleasure that 
day on which, at Clinton Hall, New York, with Colonel Wilder and many oth- 
ers, we held the first meeting of this Society. It is one of the pleasant 
things which one likes to remember. All along the vista of the past come 
the figures of those whom I have known so well; Colonel Wilder, with his 
eminent personality; Mr. Walker, w T ith his fine, genial nature; Patrick Barry, 
with his strong character; and many others whom I can recollect. They are 
strewn along the shady pathway of that vista of fifty years; and they shine 
in my memory like diamonds on the emerald green of the plants they loved 
so well. There are manj^ things connected with them that I could relate if 
time permitted. I feel that they were my valued friends; and like all soli- 
tary old men, I miss the’ “touch of the vanished hand and the sound of the 
voice that is still.” Yet there are many left whom I knew as connected with 
this Society in those early days. With some of them I would like to mingle 
more but we have been separated by long distances. I can perhaps speak 
more particularly of one of the number, who, thinking that this rigorous 
climate of ours was not just the place for him, went to a southern land and 
there found a temperature like that of the Isles of Avalon, and there evi- 
dently drank of the Fountain of Youth. 
Among the questions that we took up in those early days was the one,— 
What should we do first,— whether we should select the best varieties or try 
to weed out the bad; that is, whether we should try to get rid of the rocks 
