WHAT HORT. WILL DO FOR THE MINNESOTA FARMER. 287 



WHAT HORTICULTURE WILL DO FOR THE MINNE- 

 SOTA FARMER. 



W. W, PENDERGAST, HUTCHINSON. 

 ( An address before the Minnesota State Agricultural Society.) 



At the beginning- of this century and for many years thereafter, 

 all that was deemed necessary to carry on the agriculture of what 

 time is proving to be the best and most resourceful state in the 

 Union was a stone, a stick, a shell and a squaw. The stone was 

 chipped into an ax, by means of which a stick and a turtle shell 

 bloomed forth as a plow or a hoe, while the squaw furnished the 

 muscular energy which was the sole motive power. With such an 

 outfit, the Indian managed to provide, to a very limited extent, 

 against starvation, when the exigencies of the chase threatened it. 

 This was agriculture in its lowest estate. I use the term agricul- 

 ture advisedly, because farming pre-supposes a farm, upon which 

 is the home, with its more or less pleasant surroundings and sys- 

 tematic arrangement of buildings, yards, pastures, hay land, tillage 

 and water; while agriculture ( derived from ager, a field and colere, 

 to cultivate) simply means the cultivation of a piece of land, no 

 matter how rude the method or the implements. Where, a few de- 

 cades ago, each returning spring saw the vast, fertile prairies to 

 the west of us looking as though they had been swept by the besom 

 of destruction, solitary as Crusoe's island and forbidding as the 

 grave, it now sees comfortable homes and the promise of abundant 

 harvests, which mark the civilization of today. It beholds crowded 

 marts of business, great highways of commerce, magnificent facili- 

 ties of transportation, constantly increasing conveniences of life 

 and the grand system of education, which lies at the foundation of 

 all. " But great as has been the change in the recent past, there are 

 still vast opportunities for improvement. 



In every portion of the state we find that the income from our 

 farms bears no just proportion to the labor expended and the ex- 

 pense incurred. There is waste in our work, waste in machinery, 

 waste in our harvests, waste in feeding, waste in marketing, im- 

 mense losses in bad plans or lack of plans, and still further losses 

 from failure to carry out properly the plans that are made. This 

 society, the State Horticultural Societj', the Dairymen's Association, 

 the common schools, and the school and college of agriculture, 

 must work together to redeem the losses, to stop the leaks and to 

 make the most of the magnificent agricultural recourses of this 

 grand state. 



The plant to which we must look for healing is no exotic; it cannot 

 be brought from afar; it must be found at home, for it is " to the 

 manor born." The ignorance of the best and most systematic ways 

 of conducting farm operations on the part of the many, the careless, 

 slipshod ways of others, the lack of interest in and love for the 

 farm which characterizes a large class, who look upon it all as a 

 drudgery which they would gladly escape if a way were open — all 



