ANNUAL MEETING AT SAGINAW. 517 



although far from giving way to discouragement, he is busily engaged in the 

 work of repairing damugeb. 



The next objective point was further south, at Kochester, Olmstead county, 

 whert3 A. \V. Sias is located, on an elevated tract of land, devoted to orchard- 

 ing and a nursery. A visit to the orchards showed a discouraging array of 

 supposed hardy varieties, which had yielded to the exceptional severity of 

 recent winters. Even Mr. Gideon's Wealthy had proved no exception 

 to this rule. Mr. Sias has, upon his extensive lawns and trial grounds, a 

 considerable variety of ornamentals, both deciduous and evergreen ; among 

 which we noticed the Catalpa speciosa, which showed very slight injury. 



A drive of a couple of miles, in company with Mr. Sias, brought us to an 

 extensive orchard on quite elevated land, wliich had been planted, evidently, 

 as a commercial venture. It occupies from forty to sixty acres of land, 

 and is cut up by densely planted and well grown wind-breaks, into sections 

 of from ten to twenty acres each. Although located on high and apparently 

 favorable soil, and the trees yet comparatively young and vigorous, they, 

 almost without exception, had suffered severely, in trunk or branches, or both; 

 so much so, indeed, that there seemed little hope of their recovery — a sad 

 illustration of the pursuit of fruit culture under difficulties. 



The following morning found us at La Crescent, a small village on the Min- 

 nesota side of Mississippi river, nearly opposite La Crosse, in Wisconsin. 

 This is the residence of John S. Harris, a prominent member of the Minne- 

 sota tiorticultural Society, and a careful experimenter in pomological mat- 

 ters, who is located well up among the spurs of the high bluffs, in a narrow 

 valley, well sheltered on the west and north. 



On the steep southern slope of one of these spurs Mr. H. has a fine vine- 

 yard, containing many of the popular varieties, among which we observed 

 Isabella, already in eatable condition, as were also Concord and several of the 

 Rogers hybrids. 



Several of the more recent plums, of the Americana species, were also in 

 fruit here, although their season was now nearly past. Among these Mr. H. 

 considered De Soto and Rollingstone as highly promising. And here it may 

 not be out of place to say that these varieties seem not to suffer from curcu- 

 lio, nor are they liable to the premature loss of foliage, or to the rotting of 

 the fruit before maturity, which have, for many years, proved so fatal to the 

 success of plum culture in southern Michigan, while the quality of several 

 of these recent introductions will compare favorably with many of the pop- 

 ular varieties of Pru)ius domesiica. Unlike the chicasa varieties, they also 

 prove to be profuse and constant bearers, at the north. We regard them as 

 eminently worthy of trial in our State, where this class of plums is also 

 indigenous. 



Mr. Harris's earliest plantations of apples were made upon the warm south- 

 ern slope already mentioned, but the result has proved unsatisfactory, and he 

 is now replanting upon the northeasterly or northerly slope. He, like many, 

 if not most of the Minnesota fruit growers, is engaged in testing the newly 

 imported Russian apples. 



This place is adjacent to the south line of Minnesota, and the next move 

 was down the west bank of the river, to McGregor, in the State of Iowa, and 

 thence westward to Charles City, in northern Iowa, where a call was made on 

 President C. G. Patten, of the Iowa Horticultural Society, who is a nursery- 

 man "here, and is engaged, moreover, in the origination and testing of such 



