THE ORCHARD EXPERIMENT STATION AT OWATONNA. 39I 



THE ORCHARD EXPERIMENT STATION AT 

 OWATONNA. 



A. W. LATHAM, SECY. 



A delegation from the executive board of the society, con- 

 sisting of Messrs. Wyman EUiot, J. P. Andrews, Prof. S. B. Green 

 and the writer, selected the only pleasant day of the week following 

 the state fair to visit the orchard experiment station located at 

 Owatonna. We found this thriving city in the throes of a street 

 fair, one feature of which was a fruit exhibit, made in large part 

 by the two successful nurseries there, one under the management 

 of Thos. E. Cashman, the other under that of D. M. Mitchell, the 

 exhibit assisted largely, however, by the farmers and fruit growers 

 of the neighborhood. Larger and finer specimens were exhibited 

 there than at the state fair a week previous, which is easily ac- 

 counted for as the friut for the Owatonna exhibit was gathered 

 some two weeks later than that shown at the state fair. Some 

 very handsome specimens of Wolf River were on exhibit, also 

 Wealthy, Patten's Greening, Northwestern Greening, etc., were 

 displayed in abundance. The other features of the street fair 

 were by no means absent, but our committee was too busy to take 

 in the turn-tables and the wheel and a lot of other things that have 

 been found important accessories on these holiday occasions. 



The orchard station referred to was established in 1887 under 

 a special act of the legislature, locating it on the grounds of the 

 State School Farm at Owatonna, and appropriating for its use a 

 sum not to exceed $1,000 per annum, its management being under 

 the control of the Board of Regents, annual reports from the sta- 

 tion to be made to the State Horticultural Society. The amount 

 actually expended in operating the station is $400 annually. It 

 is at present under the superintendency of Mr. T. E. Cashman, the 

 successor of Mr. E. H. S. Dartt, who founded the station and 

 maintained it successfully until his death a few years since. 



The writer visited this station some eight years ago, but the 

 larger portion of the trees then were too young to have borne any 

 fruit. It was then crowded with seedlings in great number. These 

 have been culled out through the process of natural selection, which 

 winter-killed some and permitted blight to take others, supple- 

 mented by the axe of the superintendent, until the number growing 

 therein has been reduced to something like a thousand trees, most 

 of which show extreme hardiness and are reported by the superin- 



