Evening journal. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1907-1913, 1907-12-10
Mr.. Clohan's Address.


president of the West Virginia State
society, delivered his an
nual address on Monday evening.
President Glohan said in part:
Ladies and Gentlemen and Members
of the Society-We meet tonight un-
der the most favorable circumstances
for the purpose of deyising ways and
means to increase the interest in the
horticultural pursuits in this state.
And let me thank those of you who
have worked so hard to arrange this
meeting, and make this wonderful dis
play of flowers, fruit and vegetables
Tor all of the talking and writing of
q year would not impress itself on
the mind like one minute OF looking
ut the products of our West Virginia
hills. We may talk and write of the
wonderful possibilities of our soil and
climate, and it may fall on deaf ears
but seeing is believing. Who can look
on this splendid display, and not feel
that one-half of the truth has not been
sold of the resources of the state. Here
are the products of the hills and dales,
hey speak for themselves in a Ian
guage that none can fail to under
stand
Few OF us have any conception OF
what we may expect in the future
If we can educate our people up to
the point of planting the waste places
of the state. What is more distressing
than to see our noble forests dis
appearing and to see thousands o.
acres Of good land lying absolutely
waste, and much of this the very best
of fruit land. How are these desolatt
places to be reclaimed; where is the
labor to come from, even if we are
ready to plant? 1t is much easier
to get labor to destroy these mighty
forests, than it is to get men able
to replant them.
The tide is from the country to
the city, and it is increasing all the
time higher wages, shorter hours
more chance for recreation and more
opportunity for advancement drive
the brightest of our young men from
the green fields to the crowded streets
But this cannot go on forever. We
hear the murmur Of the consumer
about the high prices and the ex-
remedies are proposed none of which
will be effective,
getting better prices for their pro
duce. Labor is receiving more lib
eral share, shorter hours and higher
wages being the rule, and will con-
tinue so just as long as the ranks
of the producers are being thinned
and those of the consumer are being
filled up. Ask those who complain
OF high prices if they are willing &c
become producers and go back to till
ing SOIL Oh. no country life in theirs.
So conditions must get better in the
country and times become still hard
err in the cities before the tide will
turn, for turn it will, for it ever GIBBS
and flows, then the rush from the city
will set in towards the country. Those
who have accumulated enough in the
city to buy small places in the coun-
try, and who do not wait to be driven
out by starvation, will be the wise
ones. Many young man and boy
whose highest ambition is to become
clerk in some store would be 9
hundred times better off, both in
health and wealth, if he should &C
and work for some orchardist for moth
ing until he was capable of running
an orchard for the crying need of the
hour is managers for our fruit farms
What can we do to bring desirable
emigrants to our state, not necessary
lily foreign ones, for we prefer our own
people if we can get them. Some
means will have to be divised by
which our laboring class can become
land holders and this will give us
steady men whom we Gan depend on
Small colonies in connection with
large orchard or farming enterprises,
where land is cheap and where small
traots of Land with hnusns hnilt unnn