386 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 



A VISIT TO THE GOVERNMENT EXPERIMENT STA- 

 TIONS OF MANITOBA AND ASSINIBOIA. 



A. W. LATHAM, SEC'v. 



Carrying out a long contemplated plan, Mr. Wyman Elliot and 

 the writer left Minneapolis one lowering day in the middle of 

 August, en route to Winnipeg, for a visit to the government experi- 

 ment stations at Brandon, Manitoba, and Indian Head, Assiniboia. 

 What the day lacked in brightness was fully made up by the 

 wonderful profusion of golden rod, sun flowers and an infinite 

 variety of other wild flowers that escorted us all the way across 

 the state and even to Winnipeg itself. 



Our plan contemplated a visit on the way to the North Dakota 

 Experiment Station, at Fargo, but some -unparalleled stupidity on 

 our part, aided by a bit of lapse of duty on the part of the conductor 

 on the train, in detaining our transportation in his pocket too long, 

 carried us by Fargo, and the early evening found us at Grand Forks, 

 N. D., whence we were fortunate in getting a train to Crookston, 

 across the river a few miles in Minnesota, where we spent the 

 night. A purpose to visit the experiment station at Crookston also 

 failed of accomplishment from the fact of there having just been a 

 change in the management of the station and there being no super- 

 intendent in attendance. 



Early morning found us on our way north, down the Red 

 River Valley, under the same cloudy sky, with an occasional shower, 

 the land showing evidence already of a superabundance of rain : 

 a flat land that needs draining for sure success in horticultural 

 achievement and awaits the successful development of the system 

 of drainage being carried forward in the valley by the state. 



Crossing the state line at the noon hour, the sun broke through 

 the clouds and gave us thereafter three gloriously beautiful days 

 to complete our tour in northwestern Canada. We were met at 

 the station in Winnipeg by Hon. Wm. G. Scott, of that city, treas- 

 urer and one of the leading members of the Western Horticultural 

 Society, which has its headquarters in that city-. Having arranged 

 for our transportation and engaged berths on the train going west 

 that night, being the guests of Mr. Scott he undertook to show us 

 in a three hours' trip some of the beauties and achievements of 

 this strong, new city of the northwestern plains. The writer had 

 been there twenty-eight years before, when Winnipeg was truly a 

 "backwoods" town, though then the population was over 10,000. 

 It is now a city of 90,000, with a hundred miles of asphalt streets 

 and other proportional public and private improvements. Winnipeg 



