46 ANNUAL REPORT 



is the outgrowth of an organization started by a dozen fanatics. 

 It is now a proud privilege to be able to call ourselves citizens of 

 Minnesota and members of the State Horticultural Society, What 

 will it be when we have fulfilled our mission ! Minnesota, the 

 bright North Star State. There will be no occasion for exaggera- 

 tion when I speak in her praise. There is no State in all the 

 Union that to-day ofters such unsurpassed inducements to the 

 farmer, merchant, mechanic, professional man, and all others who 

 seek a new home, to settle within her borders. Her climate is 

 stimulating in its effects, and well calculated to bring men and 

 fruit to their greatest state of perfection. Her water is pure and 

 abundant. Her people, in intelligence, industry, progression and 

 civilization are not surpassed in any land. She has a soil equal in 

 variety and fertility and natural adaptation to fruit culture and 

 the producing of almost everything required by civilized man, to 

 that of any other State in the Northwest, and a purity of atmos- 

 phere that promotes health and vigor to man and beast, and with 

 a surface so varied in its character that thousands of locations can 

 be selected with special adaptation for growing the different kinds 

 of products in their greatest perfection, and it will do it, too, when 

 this society has fulfilled her mission and all of the people are edu- 

 cated in the art and science of horticulture. She has her State 

 University, where the farmer's and mechanic's sons and daughters 

 may acquire a complete education at an expense so nominal that 

 but few of our people are so poor they cannot afford it. She has 

 in connection with it an agricultural college in complete working 

 order, where our sons may learn everything that pertains to scien- 

 tific and practical agriculture and horticulture. It has in connec- 

 tion with it ample grounds for experiment and the trial of every 

 variety of grain, fruit, flowers and vegetables that are profitable as 

 a source of wealth or a source of comfort and enjoyment to the 

 people, and which affords facilities for testing the best methods of 

 cultivation, and the most economical kind and manner of applying 

 fertilizers. She has an efficient and complete system of common 

 schools, which brings the opportunity to acquire a liberal educa- 

 tion to every man's door, and there remains no excuse for ignor- 

 ance to be found in the next generation. And she has the press, 

 the "power that stands behind the throne," the greatest educator 

 and civilizer the world has yet produced. Almost every county 

 has one or more weekly newspapers, and our morning dailies equal 

 those of the metropolitan citips of the East, while our agricultural 

 weeklies are worthy of a most liberal support. Then there are 



