410 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
GOOD VARIETIES OF FRUIT FOR THE FARMER. 
H. F, PECK, AUSTIN. \ 
(Read before the So. Minn. Hort. Society.) 
Mr. President: There’s nothing too good for the farmer. And the best 
of everything is within his grasp if he will but make the effort. He pos- 
sesses the soil by right of inheritance and is master of all its manifold possi- 
bilities. 
Moses, in his description of the garden of Eden, evidently had in mind a 
fruit garden: ‘“‘And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and 
there he put the man he had made. And out of the ground made the Lord 
God to grow everything that is pleasant to the eye and good for food. And 
the Lord God took the man he had made, and put him in the garden to dress 
and ‘to keep it.” 
Mr. President, that’s scripture, and Moses is all the proof I want that am 
all-wise God, the Creator of all things, chose horticulture to be the occupa-_ 
tion of the man he had made in his own image. “And the Lord God 
planted a garden,” ‘‘and out of the ground,” ‘‘made to grow everything 
that is pleasant to the eye and good for food.” Surely, ‘‘Good varieties of 
fruit for the farmer.” 
If you will still further search the scripture, Mr. President, you wilk 
find the Lord did all this for the man He made to dress and keep His farm, 
before He created for him a cook and housekeeper. 
Whether the Lord considered a good variety of fruit the most essential 
to the man’s happiness, or, whether, in His wisdom He knew that without 
these things the woman would be discontented, dissatisfied, homesick and 
feel like jumping the job, I have not yet fully settled in my mind. But, I 
will venture this: The Lord knows that every farmer ought to raise smalf 
fruit enough to supply his family’s needs, and also that every farmer might be: 
a successful fruit grower to some extent. 
E. P. Roe, in his instructive book ‘Success with Small Fruits,” welk 
says: ‘Life at the farm sinks into deep ruts, and becomes very plodding. It 
is corn, potatoes, wheat, butter, milk. The staple productions absorb alli 
thought, and all else is neglected. Nature demands that the young shalk 
have variety, and she furnishes it in abundance. The farmer too often ig- 
nores nature and the cravings of youth, and insists on the heavy monotonous. 
work of his specialty early and late, the year round, and then wonders why 
in his declining years there are no strong young hands to lighten his toil. 
The boy, who might have lived a sturdy, healthful, independent life among 
his native hills, is a bleached, sallow youth, measuring calico and ribbons. 
behind the counter; the girl who might have lived the contented mistress 
of a vine-covered, tree-shadowed home in the country, has disappeared under 
much darker shadows in town. But for their early home life, so meager andi 
devoid of interest, they might have breathed pure air all their lives.” 
A good variety of fruit is especially valuable in forming strong, vigorous. 
and healthful bodies in children, 
The great Dr. Samuel Johnson once said, “If it is possible have a good 
orchard. I once knew a clergyman with an exceedingly small salary; who 
brought up a large family of children very creditably on apple dumplings.” 
Just imagine the possibilities of a good variety of small fruit. 
