186 HrSTORY OF HORTICULTURE IN MINNESOTA. 



those of Wijsconsin. In some respects you have the advantage. The farther south we go the 

 more changeable is the climate, and greater the extremes from heat to cold: and in like man- 

 ner the farther north we travel the less variable will be our temperature. There probably is 

 a degree of cold that will kill most fruit trees. The oranges in Florida, the peaches in Illi- 

 nois, some apples in Wisconsin, and some other apples in Minnesota. But this does not 

 always follow to the same extent, in the same State, on the same varieties. For instance, I 

 have bome good healthy trees of Rhode Island Greening and Spitzenberg, but because of 

 these isolated successes no one would think of planting whole orchards of these actnowl- 

 edged tender sorts, but rather look for his success in those longest tried and most successful 

 varieties. The enthusiasts have done a good thing for the country in the extensive planting 

 of crab trees. Many varieties of them are very much better than no fruit, and with such 

 varieties as Transcendent. Hyslop, Marengo, and Tetofsky, successfully growing, trees 

 healthy as they invariably will be— and the taste of the cultivator Avill surely increase— his 

 desire for more and something better will be expressed by an enlargement of his orchard; in 

 doing this he looks around him for some hardy variety, and in the absence of some known 

 desired sort which is succeeding in his neighborhood, he naturally takes to the press, and 

 this proves his educator, and thus he is led on step by step till his efforts are crowned with 

 success. 



And this leads me to remark upon a thought that has found an abiding place in my brain , 

 for sometime. I refer to the education of the people, the whole people. The masses are 

 ignorant; not but that there are many well informed people, for, as a whole, we are not an 

 •ignorant set, but you will remember I am talking to you horticulturally, and it is from this 

 point of observation that I wish to view things. 



How are we to expect a man to succeed in any business about which he knows nothing? 

 And how is he to be educated except "v>y reading, or study, and practical experience? Horti- 

 cultural reading, by which I mean the short, practical papers, which we find in almost any 

 agricultural paper, which tell of the life experience of the cultivators. Perhaps I am wan- 

 dering, but I wish to fully impress it upon your minds that at least one-fourth of the people 

 do not take any paper; one-half only take a local or county paper, devoted to nighborhood 

 and political quarrels; one-fourth take the leading political paper of the metropolfs of your 

 State, and about one-fourth of these take an agricultural paper and are posted, to some ex- 

 tent, in the horticultural successes of the State. 



Now, this briefly sets forth the kind of element or stock the nurserymen have to deal with, 

 upon which to build their business, and from this class, also, they are to get their curses 

 and to hear the wailings. and, shall I say it? the gnashing of teeth, of disappointed expec- 

 tations. 



You ask the remedy; forcibly resolve yourself into a committee of the whole, for the relief 

 of the people horticulturally. Let everv one within the sound of my voice, make a special 

 effort to circulate agricultural reading, and when there can be a general desire, and hence a 

 general reading of this class, then, and not till then, will your troubles, in a great degree, be 

 cast aAvay, and then you will be called upon for the best hardy trees, and not e:^tern sorts 

 known in our boyhood days, and long since discarded by every intelligent westeni horticul- 

 turist. 



All of which is respectfully submitted. 



O. S. WlLLEY, 



Chairman. 

 Moved that the report be accepted and adopted. 

 Carried. 



JOHN SHAAV. 



The committee to whom was referred that portion of the address of Elder Ely, at the annual 

 winter meeting of 1872, in regard to a biographical history of tbe late John Shaw. Esq., the 

 pioneer of the Rollingstone Valley, as Avell as the first man Avho planted the seed of the apple 

 in Southern Minnesota, would report; 



That, from all the information they have been enabled to obtain, it would appear that the 

 first care of Mr. Shaw, upon leaving the land of his birth and embarking for that of his 

 adoption, was to gather up and export, with his loved tamily and his household treasures, 

 the seed of the apple, so that in the future, his new home and those who settled around him 

 could enjoy the luxuries as well as the comforts of life. Those of us who are pioneers will 

 remember how we. upon our advent into our new western home, wondered if fruit would 

 groAV here. Many of us neglected to bring with us the seed, or the Iree.s to propagate it. 



