HISTORY OF HORTICULTURE IX AHNNESOTA. ST 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. 



The convention was called to order by the President, who proceeded to 

 deliver the Annual Address. 



ADDRf:8S OF PRE8LDEX F HARRIS. 



Gentlomen of the Minnesota HortimUnral Society : 



Although I am an enthusiastic lover of horticulture, I feel my incompetencv 

 to deliver an address suited to this occasion. I would like to give vou a 

 history of the progress the art of horticulture has made since the first cur- 

 rant bush and geranium slip were brought into the State, on the rear end of 

 an emigrant wagon, down to the present date ; but it would require the labor 

 of months to gather the statistics to enable me to do so with any degree of 

 accuracy, although it extends over but a few years of time. It is scarce 

 twenty years since the whole of our State was a wilderness — the home of the 

 wild Indian. Where beautiful and stately mansions now stand, scarce a 

 decade of years since the blue smoke curled upward from the rude wigwam, 

 and where then the buifalo and deer found ample and undisturbed pasturage, 

 we may now behold broad fields, stretching aAvay until lost in the distance, 

 that in summer are covered with golden grain, furnishing the staff of life to 

 millions of human beings. Thriving villages are springing u]) all over the 

 State, and its resources are being developed as by magic. 



Previous to 186.5, the fruits of the State were chiefly wild crabs, wihl plums, 

 wild grapes, strawberries, blueberries and cranberries, and many of these 

 were found only in certain localities of limited extent. A great many trees 

 of apple, plum and cherry, had been planted previously, but they met with 

 such speedy and certain death during the following Winters, that it came to 

 be belicA'ed by about ninety-nine out of every hundred that it was useless to 

 attempt to raise fruit in such a cold country. The farmers settled l)ack upon 

 this opinion, and claimed that our natural fruits must suffice them until they 

 could make a little with which to locate in some better country. 



A majority of our citizens have lived in the Eastern States, and Itecu accus- 

 tomed to an unstinted supplj- of apples, peaches, pears, plums, cherj-ies. vVcc.. 

 ;ind to be deprived of them and to have no hope of ever seeing or using tliem 

 more, takes all the poetry out of their lives. How many a poor wife is almost 

 broken-hearted, and weeps bitter tears when memory compels her to contrast 

 her present lot with the past, the days and the home of her girlhood ; and 

 she would almost exchange every hope of her life for one day's ramble in the 

 orchard and garden of the old home, that she might feast her eyes upon the 

 rosy-cheeked apples, golden peaches, and luscious, melting pears, and regale 

 her senses with the fragrance of the little flower-bed in the garden ; and she 

 cries — "Alas, alas, will it always be so ?" No, my friend, it Avill not always 

 be so: I perceive that I am digressing from my subject, and I will again re- 

 turn to it. 



This cry against the raising of apples was at its height in the years 1865 

 and '66. About this time Col. Robertson, of St. Paul, entered upon the work 



