452 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



or undesirable fruit were top-grafted to that which was better. To- 

 day seedlings are rarely ever planted as orchard trees except by 

 experimentalists who are seeking to originate new and better varie- 

 ties. Nurseries were small affairs compared with the large commer- 

 cial establishments of the present, where millions of trees are 

 annually propagated by root-grafting, and the man who now plants 

 an orchard may know to a certainty what manner of fruit it will 

 bear. The method of root-grafting, as now practiced, I believe, was 

 a discovery of the present century, although Evelys in a treatise on 

 pomology, A. D. 1700, said: "Some there are who talk of removing^ 

 the stock about Christmas and then also graft it; which there be 

 that glory they can successfully do even by the fireside and so not 

 be forced to expect a two or three year's rooting of the stock; but in 

 this adventure 'tis advisable to plunge the graft three or four inches 

 deep in the stock." That could not be done by the present system 

 of piece root-grafting. At least, great progress in orcharding began 

 in the general adoption of the practice of propagating trees by root- 

 grafting. 



The progress in small fruit culture began with the advent of the 

 Hovey and Wilson strawberries, the Doolittle raspberry and the Con- 

 cord grape. These all were prodigies in their day and generation, 

 but most of them have since given way to hundreds ot other varie- 

 ties that are in many respects superior to them, and the cultivation 

 and consumption of these grand fruits has increased a thousand 

 fold within the memory of some of us who are here today. In those 

 days the cultivation of raspberries and blackberries was unheard of, 

 if not unthought of. 



The progress of improvement in varieties and cultivation of vege- 

 tables and flowers and the ornamentation of rural homes, parks and 

 cemeteries, has equaled, if not surpassed, that in fruit, and when we 

 take a look back over the past we almost pity the lot of our fathers 

 and grandfathers and wish that they could come back and enjoy the 

 privileges of our day. 



The progress in our country began in the work of those immortal 

 heroes, the Downings, Wilder, Barry, Hooker, Hovey, Parsons and 

 others who started the good work of improvement in American hor- 

 ticulture and from whom we have received our inspiration. And no 

 little of this progress is due to the work of live horticultural societies 

 and well conducted experiment stations and the multitude of books 

 and papers that have been published and read within the lasl sixty 

 years. 



My experience and observations in Minnesota extend over a 

 period of nearly forty-eight years, or since 1851. I planted apple 

 trees in eastern Wisconsin in 1850 and in western Wisconsin, at La 

 Crosse, in 1853, and in the spring of 1852 had a quantity of seed pro- 

 cured from Ohio planted about two miles north of La Crescent. My 

 first orchard was planted on the place where I now reside in 1857, 

 with seedlings of my own growing and grafted varieties from Roch- 

 ester, N. Y. Since that date I have been intimately identified with 

 the horticulture of the state. But little of the early history has been 

 recorded, and it is a pity that it has not. It would afford many,. 



