254 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
were handled and planted much as I am advising in my work with the in- 
stitute. Mr. Frank, the owner of this farm, has 1,600 acres, largely de- 
voted to the dairy business, eighty-five cows being milked at present on the 
farm where the evergreens were planted. I asked him if those trees did 
not add more than $1,000 to the value of that part of his farm. He replied 
that money would and could not buy them, now that he really understood 
their value to him with his stock of cows on the prairie. He promptly 
confessed that he made a serious mistake in not making additional plantings 
every spring of the little trees and extending these perfect shelter be‘ts 
about the pastures, as well as the buildings and feeding yards. 
It is not necessary for me to add that fruit trees and other ornamental 
shrubs are doing well under such favorable conditions. 
I was shown a peach tree on these grounds which passed through the 
severe winter of 1899 in perfect condition, without any other protection 
than those stately evergreens. Such demonstrations of the great value of 
evergreens On our prairies are very encouraging to the state horticu‘tural 
society, which is maintained to encourage such work. 
Spring Valley, June 13, 1900. 
THE CATALPA FOR MINNESOTA. 
J. I. GRIMES, MINNEAPOLIS. 
(Written before the death of Col. Stevens.) 
I shall introduce this essay by giving a little sketch of the personal his- 
tory of Col. John H. Stevens, one of the earliest pioneers of Minnesota, who 
built the first house on the west side of the river at the Falls of St. An- 
thony and established a home there before the city of Minneapolis even had 
an existence, and, I am glad to say, that same old pioneer is still with us, 
an honorary life member of this society today (perhaps some of you 
may have heard of him), and that same old house which he built is still 
standing, but having been removed by the park board and placed within the 
public park at Minnehaha Falls, there to be preserved as a memorial to the 
character, integrity and worth of the man who laid the foundation stone of 
this metropolis. 
About the year 1854 or 1855, in exploring about the shores of Lake 
Minnetonka, he found the catalpa, there being one large tree and several 
smaller ones, which evidently grew from seed produced from the large one. 
The colonel, by right of discovery, took possession of the larger tree in 
his own name and for his own use, and had it made into a bedstead, which 
can now be found standing in his own house. I would suggest that the 
park board improve the opportunity and secure that old bedstead, and have 
it placed in that old house, where it properly belongs, to hold in memory 
the discovery of the first and only catalpas ever found growing indigenous 
upon the soil of Minnesota. What became of the clump of smaller trees, 
no one knows, as the spot had not been marked, and the woodman’s ax, that 
“spares” not “that tree,’ but marks for destruction everything that comes 
within its way to impede’the march of civilization (so-called), has long since, 
no doubt, sealed its doom. 
Some account of the catalpa being found growing in Minnesota was 
published at the time, I believe, over the colonel’s own signature. The 
question of fact in regard to the identity of the tree which had been found 
