Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twelfth Annual Meeting | Page 5

of you know that
Lancaster is frequently called the garden spot of the world.
Historically Lancaster City was the capital of Pennsylvania for
thirty-three years, I think from 1779 to 1812. During the Revolutionary
War when the British troops occupied Philadelphia the Continental
Congress met here for a while in a building that formerly stood at
Center Square where you now see the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument.
I was talking to your secretary a few minutes in the hotel lobby this
morning and he told me that while some of you were in the nut
business with a majority of you it was a hobby. That is the altruistic
spirit that counts in these days when most of us look upon things in a
materialistic way.
There was a time when I thought that most nuts came from Brazil, but I
am glad to learn that we grow the nuts we eat here in the good old U. S.
A., and some right here in Pennsylvania and in Lancaster County.
I cannot help but think of the chestnut blight that has worked havoc
throughout our state and some other states. It has occasioned a big
material loss. Yet I think too of another side of the loss and that is the
spiritual side because our "chestnut parties" are now becoming a past
memory. It is up to men like you to retrieve that loss and to bring back
to our youth the chance of experiencing that innocent pleasure the
gathering of chestnuts.
As I look into your faces here this morning (and while you are not
numerous you make up in quality what you lack in quantity), I cannot
help but congratulate you on showing the spirit that means progress. I
cannot help but feel also that you are optimists, and they are what we
need at the present time.
I will not trespass upon your time any longer. I again bid you a most
warm welcome to our city and on behalf of the Mayor hand you the
symbolic key of this city to enable you to go where you please.

THE PRESIDENT: Working with us unselfishly for the past two or
three years has been a Michigan man who has had in mind the benefit
of his locality, the State of Michigan and the United States. It was his
privilege to introduce the first bill into a state legislature that became a
law making it obligatory upon state authorities to plant useful trees
along the roadside throughout the entire state that he represented so
well in the Senate. I take pleasure in calling upon that member to
respond to the eloquent words of the Mayor's representative. I would
ask Senator Penney to reply to Mr. Schaeffer.
HON. HARVEY A. PENNEY: Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of this
Convention, and Mr. Mayor: We all appreciate this warm and
hospitable greeting. Some of us are a long way from home. Mr. Linton,
and I come from a town somewhat the size of this. We have about
sixty-five thousand people, a large and growing city with a lot of
prosperous and very wealthy men in it. We feel that in coming here we
are coming to a city something like our own. We have been very much
impressed with your city since we have been here. I am glad to see that
colonial spirit, the spirit of '76, which permeates your people here. Up
in Saginaw, of course, we do not have the same things to remind us of
the past that you have. You have your monuments and those things that
call your attention continually to it; but I am sure that our people are as
patriotic as your people. However, I think that the spirit of '76 which
still permeates the East helps to keep the whole country in line for the
patriotic upholding of our governmental institutions.
While most of the men here are interested especially in the scientific
investigation and promotion of the nut industry, my friend Mr. Linton
and I have been more particularly interested in road-side planting.
Along with the promotion and building of good highways we fell into
the idea of beautifying those highways. At the time the people in the
East were having their trouble in the colonial days, the revolutionary
days, our town was unheard of. It was simply way back in the forest
and the wilderness and it was not until very early in this past century
that Saginaw was even thought of. Mr. Linton and I talked last night
about different things connected with the history of our country and we
spoke of De Tocqueville, the great French traveler and explorer who

came to America way back in 1831. He wished to go into the wilds of
this country and see for himself