TA HORTICULTURIST

Vol. 44 JANUARY, 1916 No. 1

President's Greeting, Annual Meeting, 1915.

THOS. E. CASHMAN, PRESIDENT.

This is the forty-ninth annual meeting of the Minnesota State
Horticultural Society. Nearly half a century has elapsed since that
little band of pioneers met in Rochester and organized that they might
work out a problem that had proven too difficult for any of them to
handle single handed and alone. Those men were all anxious to raise at
least sufficient fruit for themselves and families. They had tried and
failed. They were not willing to give up. They knew they could
accomplish more by interchanging ideas, and, furthermore, if they were
able to learn anything by experience they wanted to pass it on to their
neighbors.

Those men built better than they knew. The foundation was properly laid,
and the structure, while not finished, is an imposing one. A great many
people believe that this structure has been completed, that we have
reached our possibilities in fruit raising. This is only half true. We
are still building on this splendid foundation erected by those few
enthusiasts.

None of those men are left to enjoy the benefits of their labor. The
present generation and the generations to come are and will be the
beneficiaries, and I believe as a tribute to their memory and the good
that they have done that we should fittingly celebrate our fiftieth
anniversary. At this time I can not suggest how this should be done; I
simply make this suggestion in hopes that it may be worked out.

I was in hopes that a home for this society might have been erected this
year or at least made ready for the 1916 meeting. This would surely have
been an occasion worthy of the anniversary which we hope to celebrate.

The building committee appointed by the last meeting went before the
legislature and tried with all the eloquence at their command to make
the members of the legislature see the necessity of appropriating
sufficient money to build a permanent home for this organization. The
members saw the force of our argument, but we could not convince a
majority of the appropriation committee that they should deviate from
their plan of retrenchment which seemed to permeate their every act.

We were disappointed but not disheartened. We were promised better
success in the 1917 session. So we are living in hopes, and I firmly
believe that if our efforts are renewed at that time that this and the
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