360 
Annual Report of the 
FLORAL DEPARTMENT. 
BY H. W. ROBY - , SUPERINTENDENT. 
As year after year rolls by, as wealth and prosperity in the state 
make their higher marks upon the scale of progress, as fair after 
fair is held where the people assemble, each to see what his neigh¬ 
bor and fellow-denizen of the state has done or is doing, and to dis¬ 
play the results of his own enterprise and culture, the Floral De¬ 
partment of the fair is more and more patronized; is more and more 
visited by increasing crowds of intelligent and refined people. 
Never in the history of Wisconsin was this fact so forcibly appar¬ 
ent as at our last State Fair. Notwithstanding the fact that two 
years ago, several of the professional florists of the state took um¬ 
brage at not receiving first premiums on everything they exhibited, 
and since then, they have kept aloof from the fair, except to see 
what others were doing, yet the number of people who frequent 
that department from year to year is rapidly increasing. This is 
very natural in an} r country where the people have opportunities 
for aesthetic culture. Semi-barbarians in every state scout at flow¬ 
ers as but “ mere weeds and trash." Cultivated people love them as 
they love the sunshine and all the other beauties and grandeurs of 
nature. 
The writer, during the fair, took occasion on Thursday, the great 
day, to make some observations on the drift, so to speak, of Wis¬ 
consin sentiment and taste as to its gratification. While each de¬ 
partment had its devotees, the Fruit and Flower Department by far 
outnumbered them all in the throngs of the people that surged 
through the hall. Early in the morning the hall was filled with 
pleasure seekers. Before anything like a crowd was observable 
elsewhere on the grounds, Floral Hall was full. Before the crowds 
in other departments became uncomfortably dense, a special police 
force had to be organized in the Horticultural Hall to turn the 
throng into the tread-mill channel of going “ all to the right;” and 
before noon, the crowd that surged through the hall was like the 
flood-tide of a great river through straits or dells. The superin¬ 
tendent, with six assistants, had a heavy task to keep all in order, 
