ANNUAL ADDRESS. 
433 
tween the local and the state societies for the special purpose 
of collecting lodal knowledge. While speaking of the experi¬ 
mental garden, I wish to add another word upon the impor¬ 
tance of such connection, as without it we can advance but 
slowl}^ Nevertheless, a mere collection of facts in any science^ 
particularly, as it seems to me, in horticulture, gathered as they 
must be under such different circumstances, can in themselves 
be of little service. They are as it were but the rough unhewn 
stones intended for an architectural structure ; but without the 
chisel, without the architect and without the builder, the 
stones like the facts are but little less than useless. Here then 
it is, just at this point, that the experimental garden is required. 
It becomes, so to 6peak, a laboratory for testing the quality of 
local facts, comparing, sifting them, proving them, and deter¬ 
mining whether they are valuable or worthless. Here too, at 
the same time is shown the value of the parent society, whose 
duty it is not only to gather information, but to digest it, to put 
it into shape and to build up the superstructure of its favorite 
science. In this way and in this way only, as it appears to me, 
can we have a truly scientific and useful society. Facts with¬ 
out science like science without facts, are calculated to mislead 
rather than benefit men. We must collect, collate, reason, 
deduce and' prove, before we can hope to teach the people 
horticulture. 
Before I close I have a pleasant duty to perform, in acknowl¬ 
edging the appreciative and complimentary manner in which 
Grovernor Fairchild has in his recent message recommended 
our society to the favorable consideration of the legislature. 
This action was unsolicited and entirely voluntary on his part, 
and as he has since informed me, resulted horn his own obser¬ 
vation of our efforts as a society, and the great good we were 
doing in the state. There is also another gentlemen to whom this 
society is under great obligation. I mean Paul A. Chadbourne, 
president of our state university. President Chadbourne has 
shown a deep interest in this society as evidenced not only by 
the able and appropriate address of last winter, but by his 
working earnestly and faithfully with us in establishing our 
experimental garden; believing as he does, that horticulture is 
Ag. Tr.—28. 
