52 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
cross-fertilization with the blackberry might aid them in setting fruit. We 
have experimented with this in planting the dewberries and blackberries 
in parallel rows, but without getting any material increase in the results ob- 
tained. Our experience seems to show that they are exceedingly unreliable 
on our soil. 
GRAPES. This year, one vineyard was destroyed to make room for 
the new Horticultural Building, but in anticipation of the necessity of de- 
stroying this vineyard, we started, four years ago, a new vineyard in the 
garden, which bore fruit this year for the first time, and made a most 
satisfactory growth. This vineyard would probably have fruited two years 
ago, were it not for the fact that it was nearly destroyed by the winter of 
1896, which was so very severe on grape vines, and which resulted in de- 
stroying most of the varieties which were young at that time. This vine- 
yard contains about 20 varieties, including our hardiest and most desirable 
kinds. This year, Campbell’s Early fruited for the first time, and appears 
to be a very promising variety. Beta is a very hardy variety, which origi- 
nated with Andrew Suelter, of Waconia, Minn., and which for many years 
has been grown in a small way in that section, and found to be exceed- 
ingly hardy, and able to stand fully exposed through some of our most 
severe winters. We are propagating this sort for distribution as a premium 
for the Horticultural Society. I regard it as fully as good in quality of 
fruit as the Janesville, rather more productive and perhaps hardier. The 
old vineyard, located near the farmhouse, and which was planted in 1886, 
produced a very good crop of fruit this year. The early frost in Septem- 
her hurt the fruit of some of the varieties, and they did not ripen as satis- 
factorily as generally in former years; but such sorts as Worden, Moore’s 
Early and Agawam ripened perfectly. We have about 50 grape seedlings, 
some of which fruited this year; and one of them seems to be of especial 
value, and will be propagated for further trial. 
Among the native fruits, Success Juneberry has been very productive 
at the Station for six or more years. While the birds are very fond of this 
fruit, and generally get their full share, yet it is well worth growing, for 
it is perfectly hardy, very productive, and the fruit is desirable. It is nearly 
the same thing as the old service berry, but is far more reliable and pro- 
ductive. 
The buffalo berry is a wild fruit that it seems to me we have not paid 
quite enough attention to. Our experience with it at the Station began 
by obtaining a few plants from South Dakota in 1887. These plants flowered 
in 1889, and all were found to be staminate. About two years later we 
succeeded in obtaining one large pistillate tree, which has fruited every 
year since then. About this same time, several quarts of fruit were obtained 
from North Dakota, the seed from which produced a large number of 
plants, and since these have come into bearing we have had considerable 
of this fruit each year. We have found the fruit to vary considerably in 
size, and also in the season of ripening, some of it being apparently ripe 
about the middle of August, and other trees producing fruit which would 
hold on into the winter. A peculiarity of this fruit is that frost seems to 
improve the quality of it much in the same way as frost affects the per- 
simmon. We have had, perhaps, a bushel and a half of fruit the past year. 
We find that the seed grows easily when mixed with sand and kept frozen 
over winter. In 1898 we raised about 6,000 plants in a bed six feet wide 
