1907. 

 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



A. W. LATHAM, SEC'y, 



As usual beneficent nature smiled brightly upon the summer 

 gathering of this society held in Armory Hall, at the State Experi- 

 ment Station, St. Anthony Park, on Tuesday, July 2nd. The weath- 

 er conditions were ideal, and everything else contributed to make 

 the occasion a successful and pleasing one. No actual account was 

 made of the number present or that sat down at lunch, but the tables 

 were set for 250 and, judging by the numbers that were fed later, to 

 say nothing of the many who were in and about the place that did not 

 participate in this function, there were at least four hundred in at- 

 tendance. Most of these were from the neighborhood of the twin 

 cities, though some were from a distance: for instance. Prof. N. E. 

 Hansen, the horticulturist of the South Dakota Experiment Station^ 

 Miss Gertrude Cairns and her mother, from Ellsworth, Wis., and 

 Rev. C. S. Harrison, the peony specialist, from York, Neb. 



The extraordinary and distinguishing feature of the meeting was 

 the exhibit of flowers, which occupied wide tables all around Armory 

 Hall. , Many entries had been made for roses, but the season proved 

 too late for them, and the display of this flower was comparatively 

 limited, but there were more than enough peonies in infinite variety 

 to make up, and a great number of kinds of perennial flowers of 

 every shape and color. Armory Hall with this setting of flowers was 

 to the eye a thing of beauty, and the fragrance as well as the sight 

 of this wonderful array of flowers was something long to be remem- 

 bered. 



In the fruit room there was a good display of currants and goose- 

 berries, because these could be shown green, but the strawberries 

 exhibit, notwithstanding the lateness of the date of the meeting, was 

 a light one. There were comparatively few growers who had them 

 ripe enough to show, and it proved to be the smallest strawberry ex- 

 hibit that has been made at one of our summer meetings in a great 

 many years. 



There were several plates of apples shown, amongst them a num- 

 ber from the seedling orchard of T. E. Perkins of Red Wing, which 

 had been kept in an ordinar}- out-door root cellar and were exhibited 

 by Mr. Wyman Elliot, although not entered for competition. 



