112 MINNESOTA STATE IIOKTICULTURAr. SOCIETY. 



SOUTH DAKOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 

 ANNUAL MEETING, 1907. 



L. R. MOVER, MONTEVIDEO, DELEGATE. 



The traveler enterino- South Dakota on the main line of the 

 '"Milwaukee" railroad sees spread out before him the fertile prairies 

 of Grant County, lying southwest of Big Stone Lake. The most 

 striking feature of the landscape is the great range of hills lying 

 like a blue cloud along the southwestern horizon. This is the Coteau 

 des Prairies of the early French voyageur. These hills rise to a 

 height of about nine hundred feet above the general level of the 

 prairies of western Minnesota, reaching an elevation of frqm seven- 

 teen hundred to nineteen hundred feet. They extend from a point 

 west of Lake Traverse, near the north boundary of South Dakota, 

 in a southeasterly direction some sixty to seventy-five miles, entering 

 Minnesota southwest of Canby. These hills consist of a bed of 

 cretaceous rocks overlaid by an immense deposit of glacial drift. 

 This drift, like that of the prairies of western Minnesota, was 

 brought down from the north by the ice sheet and includes in its 

 make-up an immense amount of broken up and decaying magnesian 

 limestone rock. The soil is of unsurpassed fertility, the limestone 

 rock filling it with plant food that is apparently inexhaustible. This 

 range of hills is crossed by many streams which have cut deep 

 ravines into the slope. These ravines are timbered, the principal 

 tree being burr oak. Here is an ideal orchard site as yet but little 

 utilized, with the favorable northeasterly slope. 



The meeting was held at Groton, in the eastern part of Brown 

 County, at the foot of the westerly slope of the Coteau. Groton is 

 two hundred seventy miles west of Minneapolis and is an active, 

 enterprising city. The farmers in the neighborhood appear to be 

 prosperous, and the city was full of enthusiasm. The meetings were 

 held in the opera house, and among those present were such leading 

 horticulturists as C. W. Gurney, of Yankton ; E. D. Cowles, of Ver- 

 million ; George H. Whiting, of Yankton; A. Xorby. of Madison; 

 M. J. DeWolf, of Letcher; and W. S. Kinkade. of Sioux Falls. 

 The thermometer registered 34 degrees below zero, and a strong- 

 prairie wind was blowing, but this did not dampen the enthusiasm 

 of the meeting. 



A paper by J. H. Berry was read, raising some questions as to 

 the value of the Compass cherry and other varieties of the sand 

 cherry, including the Sioux and Tomahawk. Mr. Whiting thought 

 that the Sioux and Tomahawk were of no value. Mr. Gurney said 

 that the Sioux was so much better than the Tomahawk that the 

 chickens would even pick it out in the row and eat it. There 



