ANNUAL MEETING—1868. 
541 
will or will not grow to advantage in this State. It seems to me to be a 
wiser course, to give our individual experience from various parts of the 
State ; to compare notes from year to year, and to wait for some years 
before we attempt to lay down laws for what shall or shall not be grown. 
In the meantime we are assured of this—that there is scarcely a good vine 
known in the Eastern or Middle States, and very few in the South-west, but 
what we can grow and are growing, as it seems to us, in perfection, a fact 
as gratifying as it is encouraging for the future. If, in Wisconsin, we may 
not sit under our own fig tree, we have at least an abundance of vines, 
luxurious, beautiful and excellent. 
REPORTS. 
The secretary, Mr. Willey, then read the following report: 
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Society—It becomes my duty as well as 
pleasure to report to you the progress horticulturally of your Soc ety, and 
in a degree of the State at large, for the past year. 
It may be said with much truth aud earnestness that the year 1867, has 
been one of great progress. Pomology has reigned triumphantly and brought 
forth bountifully every class of fruits and the fairest products of the earth. 
So fair that the recipents everywhere called it not only very “ good” but 
the best. Eastern pomologists have viewed the fruits of the west with won¬ 
der and satisfaction, and oft times been nonplussed, at such specimens as we out 
west bring forth, while we assured them it was no prodigy, but only an every 
day affair. I repeat, Fruit has been abundant, so much so that nearly o^^ 
quite our home supply was furnished from our own orchards, and for the 
first time that sage old fellow, the “ oldest inhabitant ” saw apples brought 
into the market by the wagon box full and shoveled out like so many pota¬ 
toes. Such, pomologically, is our progress, and such too, that the faint hear¬ 
ted take courage, are rallying around the strong and more resolute, assisting 
them in forming societies for more thorugh development, and the mutual 
benefit that may arise by frequent discusions. 
Already we have a Society in successful operation in each of the following 
places, viz: Milwaukee, Janesville, Plattville and two in Madison, and there 
may be and probably are others of which we are not advised hut with which 
we would be glad to correspond. May ve not call these all children of the 
parent Society, at least greeting their members as heroes and the represen¬ 
tatives of progress, intelligent laborers, men who are toiling vigilantly to 
sustain that which, but a few years since, was well nigh driven from our soil, 
and almost from the^popular opinion, viz. : that fruit-raising was practicable 
here. This assertion, Mr. President, it is your mission, aided by your collea¬ 
gues present and the members of local societies every where, to establish, 
and with a moderate enthusiasm it may be done, till every hill side as well 
as prairie farm shall bud and blossom, bringing forth fruits of its kind. 
Exhibition rooms have been crowded with both fruits and visitors, to gaze 
upon the ruddy cheek of a Snow, the pale visage of a Talman and the rough 
coats of the Russets. Of the State Exhibition we may say, it was much the 
