year, and we had a state commission that was looking after the interests of the state; but I think they forgot the fruit department; and one day along in early autumn I got a letter from the authorities in Chicago inviting me to send on a collection of my fruit. Well, I was very busy, hardly knew how to stop. Finally I wrote them that I had not much fruit, it was very poor, and I did not know as I should have anything that was worth showing; but we were to have a grange fair in a few days and if I found I had anything to show I would send some out there. Well, I did; I sent some forty varieties of apples and pears, and a few I had collected of two or three other gentlemen in the state. A week or two afterwards I was there myself, and I found a part of my fruit on exhibition. At that time it was the only fruit from New Hampshire; but very much to my joy and relief my friend, Mr. Baker, from Quincy, arrived a day or two afterwards with a very handsome supply of fruit, and it went into the exhibit. The result I suppose we shall know sometime; I think the impression was very favorable. We thought New Hampshire ought to have been represented at that fair, and I still think so. I do not think we could have kept up our interest as did some of the states. The state of Missouri, for instance, appropriated ten thousand dollars to their horticultural show at that fair. But then, they have in that state thirty-two county associations, and they took hold with a will, and the result was they had a magnificent exhibit. We could have sent on a show of fruit that would have been a credit to New Hampshire, and that is what should have been done. With that feeling a few of us assembled one night at the New Hampshire building and talked the matter over, and we resolved that we should try to organize a horticultural society in this state, and it resulted in the present society. We propose to hold a fair in October. Our membership fee is one dollar, and five dollars for life membership. We do not expect to make money out of this; we do not expect to immortalize any individual; but we do hope to advance the interest in pomology in New Hampshire. (Applause). We feel that no better fruit can be produced on the continent in the shape of apples than can be grown in New Hampshire. We cannot grow them so

large as in the West, but we can excel them in quality. That we can get a higher flavor, a better flavor, I believe is admitted by all. Our lands are well adapted to the growth of the tree in the southern part of the state and through the middle part of the state; and if it could be made to appear that it is profitable, as I believe it can, our farmers I think can be made to come forward and make it an industry that will overshadow most other industries of the state.

I think I have occupied all the time I care to this evening with my rambling remarks. I have no apology to make only that I did not know what I was going to say until I got on to the rostrum. I had not a thought prepared. I supposed I was going to be preceded by Professor Whitcher, and hoped that I might catch upon something he might say that would be interesting, either to endorse or antagonize.

REMARKS BY HON. J. D. LYMAN.

I would like to have a minute. Perhaps some of you have seen an old book that tells the doleful story about the fall of man, and it is generally credited to the doing of an apple; the man, ungallant as usual, laid it off on the poor girl. I went down to Jamaica Plains two or three years ago to try and find out how to grow timber. I was a good deal interested in this growing of timber. I knew that some forty or fifty years ago somebody had given a hundred thousand dollars for the establishment of an aboreta. I supposed I could go out there and find out how to grow timber. When I got there I found they had never given attention to that, but to the growing of all kinds of trees and shrubs simply as objects to look at. I was informed that they had sent to Asia and got some of the original apples supposed to be those that the poor girl and boy ate, that is, if they were girl and boy, and caused all this difficulty of having to study Latin and Greek, and a great many other things which I never studied. It was about this time of year or a little later. And here are two specimens of the apples, and they are full grown, too, or very nearly full grown-came from Asia, the original native apple.

Now I said this afternoon that we have made improvement; I say so now. This is not a great specimen of an apple, but it is a very pretty specimen of a Williams apple. But, don't you see there is quite an improvement? We can make improvements in everything. One of the greatest advantages that the farmer has is that there is no single thing but what he can improve. You cannot mention any department in agriculture but what improvements can be made. You can double the product of the cow; then after you have doubled it once you can double it again. I leave that to Professor Whitcher. You can improve crops in the same ratio, and so on. I simply rise at this moment to say how apples can be improved and have been improved. You see that one is very much nicer than the other.

Now, on that point I wish to show you how slow the old time people were in making progress. My grandfather, in 1770, probably by the time he was twenty years old or earlier, grafted one apple tree, a Rhode Island Greening. My uncle grafted an apple tree; and my aunt, who died a year ago last March, ninety years of age, grafted another. Those three were the only grafted apple trees in my school district until I got to be quite a large boy. Consider that they knew how to graft as early as that, and yet of those families in that school district not one of them had a grafted apple tree, with the single exception of those three trees on my grandfather's farm. Why, no such a thing could happen to-day. If there was any means by which you could today improve your apples as much as they were improved by being grafted, you would see it run like wildfire through the state. I wish to impress upon the audience not only what improvements have been made, but the readiness of people to make improvements now compared with the people of half a century or more ago.

Brother Whitcher has just stated that some seventy-five or eighty per cent. of the butter made in New Hampshire was made in the butter dairies.

MR. WHITCHER.-Seventy-five or eighty per cent. made in private dairies.

MR. LYMAN.-Well, it has been but a few years that we had one. It shows how rapidly improvements are made in comparison

with what they once were made. So, if you get discouraged, any of you, remember these are the original apples, and this is only a fair specimen of a modern apple. This is the result of putting brains into apples and improving them.

SECOND DAY, THURSDAY, AUGUST 16.

THE PRESIDENT.-The subject under consideration this forenoon is that of "Tuberculosis," and I have the honor of introducing to speak to you upon that subject Hon. Irving A. Watson of Concord, president of the state board of cattle commissioners and secretary of the state board of health.

TUBERCULOSIS: ITS PREVALENCE, COMMUNICABILITY, AND PREVENTION.

BY IRVING A. WATSON, M. D.

Tuberculosis, which is more commonly called consumption by the general public, is the most fatal disease known to civilized life. It is wide-spread in its destruction, and in many geographical divisions of the world invades almost every community. It comes with such an insidious and silent tread that its footfall is unheard. It seizes its victim with such a gentle and tender grasp that its hand is unfelt till its finger has painted the hectic flush of its first conquest; and in a few weeks, a few months, or perchance a few years, it has attained its ultimate victory-death. There is no life too pure, no face too sweet, no form too lovely for its unrequited passion of destruction. It is the crowned king of mortality before whose edict we have too long bowed our heads in ignorant and sometimes reverential submission.

It is not as an alarmist that I address you, but it is my earnest and sincere purpose to present to you and the people of New Hampshire some facts concerning the prevalence, communicability, and prevention of this terrible malady.

It is essential to have a definite knowledge of the prevalence of tuberculosis in order to comprehend the enormity of its rav

ages and thereby to become impressed with the necessity of scientific and continued activity along the lines of prevention, for it is now positively known to be a preventable disease as it is also known to be a communicable one.

In a paper like this, limited in time, I shall be able to present only a few features-some of the more salient points necessary for the public to grasp relative to this wide-spread and destructive disease. Statistics show that it is more universal and more fatal than any other disease, not even excepting the occasional great epidemics of cholera and yellow-fever. It is not evenly distributed in all countries, or in all sections of the same country. Unfortunately in our own state, as well as throughout all New England, the mortality from it is great, influenced, doubtless, largely by climatic and topographical conditions. It is estimated that 150,000 persons die annually in the United States from consumption, and a great majority of these unfortunate victims are between fifteen and thirty-five years of age, in the very flower of life and in the most useful stages of existence.

It will doubtless be more interesting to you and perhaps more instructive, to present some facts relative to the ravages of this disease in New Hampshire. With certain natural conditions in which we have a great pride, our magnificent mountains, peaceful valleys, charming hillsides, beautiful lakes, upon the shores of the largest and most attractive of which we are now gathered, the invigorating air and the general prosperity of our people, we might be led to believe that the "great white plague" only occasionally sought a victim in the old Granite State, but alas! such is not the fact. The death rate from consumption is large. The average number of deaths from this disease officially reported for the past nine years in this state is 772 annually. Add to this the number of deaths that occur from other tuberculous conditions, and a few that are not probably correctly returned, and we have a death rate approximating 1,000 persons in New Hampshire annually from tuberculosis. Think of this fearful fact-one thousand of our citizens, most of them in the prime of life, going down to the grave each year from a disease which scientific investigation shows to be contagious and largely preventable, yet up to the present time only a feeble effort has been made to stem its tide of death.