12 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
us not get on the side track! Let us not turn either to the right or to the 
left, but let us pursue the even tenor of our way till we can see that all these 
things have been brought about, and our work is practically at an end, so 
far as our duty is concerned. 
The improvement of the iruits of this state and the Northwest will never 
cease. They will keep on improving as long as there are other men like 
those in this society who are to follow us; but we shall have the satisfaction 
of feeling that we have contributed our quota, that we have done our part as 
well as in us lay to bring about this grand result. 
We must look after the causes of the troubles that beset our pathway. It 
will never be productive of much good to simply work on a theory. We say 
we will try this way and see what we get, then we will try that way. It is 
like the boys used to work their arithmetic lesson. They said, “We will mul- 
tiply by this number, and if that does not give the result we will divide, and 
if that does not give the answer we will add one tothe other—until we get the 
required answer.” How much better off are we if we follow after every- 
thing? We shall make no advancement whatever. We must look to the 
causes that obstruct our pathway, and such a lecture with the demonstration 
as was given us by Prof. MacMillan yesterday morning gives us an idea of 
what is before us. Get at the underlying principles; see what the cause of 
the blight is, see what produces the summer scald, see why it is that those 
apple trees root-kill; and in all these matters we should work along in har- 
mony with other states, neighboring states that are having the same troubles, 
the same difficulties, the same obstacles in their pathway that we have. After 
we have got the thing established; after we have found out what the trouble 
is there is no need of spending more time over that; then let us take some 
other branch. It would be a good plan for us to say to North Dakota and 
South Dakota and to Wisconsin: You make your experiments along this 
line or that line. Not saying it in any dictatorial way, but say to them that 
we want to cover certain ground, and that they should take this line, and we 
will take that line, and North Dakota another and South Dakota another, 
and work out those lessons, so that one will not go over the same ground 
the others have gone over. Now we see how much is gained by this experi- 
ment station in having its little stations scattered around over the state, 
where the different soils are represented, and the people at those stations do 
the experimenting that it would be impossible for each farmer to do for him- 
self. Sc as horticulturists we have our little stations scattered through this 
state; they are helping us out, and North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and 
Wisconsin can help us out, and we can help them’a great deal more than 
each one can help himself if each one is working without any attention being 
paid to these others that are working on these same great problems. 
One of the things we want is a winter apple. We have got plenty of fall 
apples and summer apples that are doing well. I think there are a large 
number that can be depended on in the future for a crop year after year. 
There will be what Brother Dartt calls a “test winter” by and by that will 
thin this number out, but after thinning there will be enough left of that 
kind. Now we want to turn our attention to the winter apple. I am one of 
those fellows who believes that much can be done in the way of improving 
by cultivating those varieties that we already have. The potato may be cul- 
tivated (no particular variety of potato, the Chenango, for instance), 
year after year, through generation after generation, and when you get 
through with it it is the old Chenango potato, with all its diseases that have 
