380 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



HORTICULTURE AT THE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR, 



1907. 



A. W. LATHAM, SECRETARY. 



The general appearance of Horticultural Hall, not only at the 

 opening of the fair at 9 o'clock a. m. Monday morning, Sept. 2, 

 but at every moment thereafter until its close at the hour of 

 eleven on the Saturday evening follovving, was almost all that 

 could be desired, — thoroughly satisfactory to the management 

 and the exhibitors, and as near as could be judged ljy the ex- 

 pressions of the visitors attending equally so to them. In one 

 point only could there have been a radical improvement in it, and 

 that was in the degree of ripeness of the fruit exhibited. The 

 fair was held at least two weeks too early to secure fully grown 

 and well colored specimens of the various kinds of fruits shown, 

 so that necessarily much of it was very undersized and lacking 

 the beautiful, bright color which belongs to mature fruit grown in 

 this climate. This situation, however, was unavoidable. In one 

 respect the season was peculiar, and favorably so for this exhibit, in 

 that apples were more highly colored for their stage of maturity than 

 is usual. 



In the department of apples there were the same number of 

 collections in the professional class as last year, though a change 

 in the personel. In the amateur class there were eleven collections 

 shown, two more than in 1906. The amateur collections aggregated 

 362 plates and the professional 233 plates. 



There were no premiums offered on sweepstake collections 

 this year, but in place of it premiums were offered for collec- 

 tions of twenty varieties, collections of fifteen varieties and col- 

 lections of ten varieties. These new classes all proved to be 

 very popular with the exhibitors, and there were eleven ex- 

 hibited in the twenty variety class, twelve in the fifteen variety 

 class and fifteen in the ten variety class. 



The apple seedling exhibit was an especially fine one, Mr. 

 T. E. Perkins, of Red Wing, as usual, carrying off the honors 

 of the occasion with 121 varieties from his Malinda seedling 

 orchard, all of them beautiful fruit and gotten up as a display in 

 an almost perfect arrangement. Fifty varieties of seedlings were 

 shown from the Lyman Wealthy seedling orchard and in smaller 

 numbers from other orchards. A display of 92 varieties of seed- 

 lings were shown by Mr. Thos. E. Cashman, superintendent of 

 the Owatonna orchard station, grown in that orchard. This 

 fruit was very immature, however, and was only a forecast of 



