412 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Before strawberries are gone raspberries will be ripe and continue from 
four to six weeks. Cherries, currants and gooseberries will come before the 
raspberries are gone. As the last of these go, plums and apples will be ready 
for the can and table. During August, September and October, the orchard 
and the garden will furnish a great variety, for who will ignore the luscious 
tomato, and the juicy, fragrant ground cherry, which you can safely store 
away in the husk, in a cool, dry place, and keep, if you wish, till March. 
Aside from this, you will fece to depend mainly upon apples, but of Eoas 
apples the family will never tire. 
The only exception that can be taken to this “variety” is the apple. 1 
will admit that as yet this part of southern Minnesota is not particularly 
adapted to the growing of winter apples. Or, rather, as yet, no variety of 
long keeping winter apple has adapted itself to this part of southern Minne- 
sota. But, the exhibition of varieties of apples so conspicuous here today is 
conclusive evidence that there are many apples that do grow and thrive 
right here extremely well. 
I have not the authority to say that any of them would keep under 
conditions they might have to face in the farmer’s loft or cellar, such as 
sudden change of temperature, children, city company, etc., until rhubarb 
put in its appearance; but I will say that we all know that there are some 
kinds that will succeed with half a chance, and furnish a surplus of choice 
fall and early winter fruit, which surplus can easily be disposed of, when 
at its best, for enough to place a few barrels of long keepers where they will 
do the most good. 
That’s the way I raised my winter apples in Wisconsin, and I did it 
from five trees of Duchess of Oldenberg. Any man that owns his farm can 
do it just as easy as he can change a load of hogs into a bank check, a load 
of wheat into a tax receipt, or a load of scabby potatoes into a big drunk and 
a family disturbance. See! Simply an exchange of commodities! That 
settles that. 
I have often been asked, “What varieties of berries would you advise the 
farmer to raise?’’—and a very important question too. I am not looking for 
any argument with any of the nurserymen here or any market gardener, or 
even with the good people who have builded their homes in the city and are 
justly entitled to all the respect that can beeshown them and their opinion 
(we as farmers depend on them as consumers), for sometimes people are 
not strictly honest, sometimes people from necessity are biased in their con- 
clusions, and sometimes are not in a position to properly judge which are the 
best. 
The nurseryman has had his agents out for the past three months, solic- 
iting orders for nursery stock from the farmers, under instructions to speak 
very highly of the different varieties, not too highly, but just highky enough 
to make a sale—but especially to recommend anything with which the nur- 
sery may be overstocked. The market gardener recommends such varieties 
as he has. He never plays into the hand of the nurseryman unless he is 
paid for it, and the varieiies most popular with him are those which, by rea- 
son of their firmness, can be hauled all over the town, in the market wagon, 
or, perhaps, shipped a long distance and still present to the uninformed a 
fairly respectable appearance. 
Many of our city friends buy ae at the grocers and live and die in 
blissful ignorance of the fact that the fruit at home in the country and the 
