4l8 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the fact that others have been reading not only the "Farm, Stock 

 and Home," but also the "Farmer" and the "Northwestern Agricul- 

 turist." The result has been great activity along horticultural lines. 

 The State Horticultural Society now numbers twenty-five hundred. 

 The Ideal apple has fully merited its name. These have been plant- 

 ed by the quarter section, Minnesota apples are in greater demand 

 and Minnesota has become the greatest fruit state in the union. 



Mr. J. S. Parks : In opening the discussion of this paper I 

 would like to be the prophet and follow up the theme Mr. Taylor 

 has just discoursed upon as to what we are coming to later on. 

 We all know we were very much pleased at our meeting last year to 

 find that we had won the highest prize at the Pan-American Ex- 

 position, something we had very little hope or expectation of doing 

 only a few years ago. Some years ago a neighbor of mine made a 

 bet of the oysters that he would raise apples on cottonwood trees 

 before I would on my apple trees. He has not yet paid the bet, 

 but I have sold him apples at a dollar a bushel. I think the time 

 is coming when we will be not only the "bread and butter" state, 

 but we will be the apple state of the union. We see evidences of 

 it on every hand, and with this thousand dollar premium offer and 

 men with their trees scattered all over the country we can hardly 

 anticipate the result that is to follow in the wake of the trials to be 

 made. I believe the future of the apple in Minnesota is to be a 

 long stride ahead of what we now have before us. It has been re- 

 marked here today that the trials and difficulties we had to en- 

 counter were greater than they were anywhere south of us. The 

 societies of states south and east of us, where they have so little 

 to do to raise a crop of fruit, cannot compare with ours. It takes 

 six or eight of the leading states of the union to make as large a 

 membership as Minnesota has today. I have in mind several of my 

 neighbors and friends whom I have interested in raising fruit and 

 in planting apple seeds by the wayside — and planting them every- 

 where. In New York and Canada you find apple trees by the road- 

 side for a hundred miles at a stretch. I think that can be practiced 

 here in a measure, and somebody may get the benefit. 



Mr. Frank Yahnke : You have noticed that much of our dis- 

 cussion is along the line that it is hard to raise apples in Minne- 

 sota. I think it is harder to raise apples in California than it is in 

 Minnesota. It is harder to raise good apples in any state of the 

 union than it is in Minnesota. It is only difficult here in a certain 

 direction, in a different way. We have not as many hardships to 

 contend with and not as much work connected with the growing 

 of our fruit as they have in California. If the fruit grower in Min- 

 nesota were to pay as much attention to his fruit as the fruit grower 

 does in .California he would have better pay for his work than they 

 have in California. How they spray their trees, how they water 

 them and how they work over them day after day ! That is not the 

 way we do here. Wherever you find an orchard in Minnesota in 

 which northern grown trees are planted, you will find apples where 

 the trees are taken care of. (Applause.) 



