The President:  Is Professor Waldron in the room?  Here he comes.  He is the leading light of North Dakota and a gentleman who has been with us before. (Applause.)

Mr. Waldron:  These people will think North Dakota is a dark place if this is a leading light.  What is the occasion of this?

The President:  Tell us your troubles.

Mr. Waldron:  When we had a good wheat crop we did not have any troubles.  We forget our other troubles whenever we can get something like 100 million bushels of wheat.  Our horticultural troubles have been quite numerous.  We had a frost every year, including July.  We started in on the ninth day of June with a frost that killed everything in sight except a few cottonwood trees and things like that, but all of our tomatoes, which were in blossom by the way at that time because we had a favorable spring, and plums and apples went the same way.  I think a few of the late blooming plums managed to survive.  The frost in July did not hurt very much but the frost in August certainly finished us.

Mr. Latham:  The reporter is taking all that.

Mr. Waldron:  Our reputation is so good, we can own up to calamity once in a while.  Of course, if our reputation was not better than others we would have to keep it dark, but inasmuch as nature favors us so continuously we can own up when we get bumped.  The August frost put our corn out of business, so we are around with long fingers trying to steal seed corn.

However, a great many of the people of the state are looking forward to the matter of planting trees as never before, and our farmers and citizens are taking more interest in general tree planting and beautifying the homes than in previous years.  I had this term a large class of students in landscape gardening.  They will go out to the places where they live and encourage the planting of trees and landscape gardening there.  In this matter of general ornamentation the frosts or other calamities have not discouraged us.  I think there were more trees grown and more ornamental work done this year than in any two previous years because the men have the money and are willing to spend it.  I was out on a farm last week where a man insisted on buying a thousand evergreen trees.  The nurseryman tried to sell him only five hundred, but he would not have it that way.  He wanted a thousand.  He said he had the money and was going to pay for them; so he planted the thousand trees.  We do not recommend such rashness on the part of our farmers, but it shows when a farmer insists on having a thousand trees he is taking the beautifying of his grounds seriously.  This is perhaps an extreme case, but we have others working along the same line.

I certainly enjoy the privilege of being with you people here again as I have for the last quarter of a century, twenty-five years ago, when I was made an honorary member of this society, and I do not know of any prouder moment in my whole career than when you saw fit to honor me in that manner.  I certainly would never forgive myself for the balance of the year if I failed to attend these meetings. (Applause.)