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WISCONSIN HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY        87
society. The point I want to emphasize here is that the
Horticultural Department is ready and willing and anxious
to have you bring your problems to it, so that we may help
you in any capacity we can. Not only that, but we are even
ready to go a step further and to say that if there are things
going on in the Horticultural Department which do not
meet your approval, or about which you have some questions,
we are very glad to have you come to us with those criticisms,
with your suggestions, because we feel, and we want you to
feel, that the Horticulture Department is merely a servant of
the horticulturists of the state, that we are there to serve
you in whatever capacity we can serve you best and so far as
possible, follow out your suggestions.
In a neighboring state they have put into operation an
idea which I think in a way is a very commendable idea. It
is that the Horticultural Society has seen fit to organize
within itself a committee whose function it is to get in touch
with the men of the college and experiment station to take
up and discuss and try to work out methods of meeting their
particular problems. I think that undoubtedly that methiod
could probably well be followed out in Wisconsin.
I do not know that I have fairly put up to you the relation
of the Horticultural Department to the fruit grower, or the
relation of the fruit grower to the Horticultural Department,
but I have tried to make you see that you have a responsibility
in helping to do the workwhich the fruit growers of the
state are asking us to do. I thank you.
VARIATIONS IN NATIVE TREES, SHRUBS AND
HERBACEOUS PLANTS
WILLIAM TOOLE, SR.
The plant breeder is interested in any tendency of vegetation to
vary, because that is the foundation of his dependence, in efforts
to originate, or, as some express it, to create new varieties. The
lover of nature delights in observing and comparing the various
forms and coloring which nature offers for our admiration in the
vegetable kingdom. Propagators and dealers are interested in
whatever is new or novel, that they may attract buyers, and the
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