COMMERCIAL ORCHARDING IN TURNERCOUNTY, 8. D. 449 
berries, are sure money makers if they can obtain sufficient moisture. Each 
group requires its fund of special knowledge, which will come to you little 
by little as you read and observe. The more I think of it, the more firmly 
I become convinced that it must have been a fruit grower who tampered 
with the old adage and made it read “All things come to him who hustles 
while he waits.” 
FRUIT CULTURE IN SOUTHERN MINNESOTA. 
Cc. E. OLDER, LUVERNE. 
(Read before South Dakota State Horticultural Society, January 16, 1900.) 
In treating of this subject I will try and give in a few words some of 
our experience in fruit production, as the experience gained in our corner 
of Minnesota will apply in a larger degree to your own conditions than 
from almost any other locality. 
Settled for the most part at about the same time as your state, and 
largely by the same class of people, anything in trees, fruit or flowers grow- 
ing and doing well with one of us will do the same with the other when 
like treatment is given it. We may not be able to make conditions, but we 
may help to make conditions; we may not be able to make opportunities, 
but we can take advantage of opportunities presented and turn them to our 
account. We have experienced disappointments, numerous and trying dis- 
appointments, by not treating the subject of fruit growing with the intelli- 
gence that we usually use in all or the most of our every day farm affairs. 
We have had hail storms, drouth, hard, cold winters, long, dry spells in 
summer, hot winds from the desert. The other evils mentioned are being 
overcome largely and to a great degree by treating in an intelligent man- 
ner and using the facilities afforded us by our own and others’ experiences. 
I do not mean by this that we have overcome all obstacles, by any means, 
but we are having a fair degree of success where otherwise we have failures. 
I believe that a small nursery, at least one in every county, well patronized 
by the home people, where the neighbors can get trees and set them out 
within a few hours after they are dug, is one of the elements of success in 
this business. There is no change of climate, and the stock is adapted to 
your locality, for it grew there, and your home nurseryman will protect your 
interests by protecting his own. If it is allowed to dry out, you alone are to 
blame, because you saw it taken from the ground. 
In our part of the country, and this section is also part of our country, 
with its drying winds the roots of trees will not stand exposure to any ex- 
tent and live. Evergreens can be set out and grown with as little risk as 
cottonwood, but they must be handled on a damp or cloudy day; the least 
exposure thickens the sap, and the tree dies. Since adopting this plan we 
have good success with evergreens. The apple trees that are doing the best 
_with us are the varieties recommended by our own horticultural society 
either for general planting or for trial. I need not name the varieties, but I 
cannot refrain from mentioning the Wealthy and Patten’s Greening, the most 
valuable of all the new apples produced in the new states, Iowa.and Minne- 
sota. 
In setting our orchards we set the trees north and south, the trees ten or 
twelve feet apart in the.row, with the rows about thirty feet apart, leaving 
a clear place to cultivate some hoed crop and at the same time making it 
¢asy to cultivate the trees while young. Setting raspberry or currant plants 
