408 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



HINTS ON FRUIT GROWING. 



THOS. E. CASHMAN, OWATONNA. 



(So. Minn. Hort. Society.) 



Is it true that fruit can be grown with any degree of success in 

 the cold northwest? This question has been agitated by many ever 

 since our state has been settled, and a great number of people are 

 still of the opinion that time spent in the care of fruit trees, as well 

 as shrubbery and plants, is practically lost. Nearly every farmer in 

 Minnesota who has farmed for any length of time has set out more 

 or less nursery stock with varied results, but failure has been more 

 prevalent than success. True we find here and there a thrifty, 

 energetic farmer meeting with great success growing hardy varieties 

 of apples, native plums, raspberries, gooseberries, currants, straw- 

 berries and many other kinds of fruit ; while his neighbor with the 

 same kind of soil, the same amount of rain and dew performing 

 their respective duties in nature's work, has planted with but little 

 results. 



Now there is a cause for failure as well as success, and we must 

 look it up. We find upon investigation that failures in fruit growing 

 are due to the following causes : First, where fruit trees have failed 

 they were likely grown in the east or souths where the soil, climate 

 and other conditions are so different from ours that the trees in- 

 variably die before they become acclimated. 



Second, smooth-tongued tree agents from the east and south are 

 annually raiding our state selling varieties of stock that will not 

 stand the climate with our people, who pay out their good money and 

 get nothing in return but a great lot of work and disappointment. 

 But abuses by the nurseryman are not confined to the disreputable 

 from distant land, as we have some of the already mentioned in our 

 state, who have no conscience and care nothing for honor, reputation 

 or the interests of fruit culture. They never think of giving "value 

 received". and are so short sighted in the greed to make money that 

 they forget that honest goods and good treatment will always be re- 

 warded. 



Third, failures are not always due to dishonest nurserymen and 

 agents but too frequently on account of the purchaser's gross neglect 

 in caring for the stock. A great many, and I might say three- 

 fourths, of the people who buy nursery stock do so because some 

 clever agent's arguments prevail, and unless the agent instructs the 

 purchaser honestly and intelligently and also furnishes printed in- 

 structions the stock is usually poorly cared for and a great part of 

 it dies on that account. 



