506 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



we are always glad to welcome. I take great pleasure in asking 

 Mr. Harrison, of York, Nebraska, to speak to us for two minutes. 



Rev. C. S. Harrison (Neb.) : Mr. Chairman and Friends: I 

 think it takes a cold climate to develop warm hearts. I have been 

 very cordially received here and enjoyed myself very much. I am 

 catching your spirit, and I am getting full of enthusiasm. The way 

 you defy old Boreas, I want to tell you right here and now (and I 

 am no prophet of the future), that you will yet be raising peaches 

 in Minnesota. We have data from which we are going to work. 

 The Brunings have been selecting hardy peaches for forty years, 

 and they have some of them so perfect that they will stand almost 

 anything in the way of climate. They have crossed the Champion 

 with the Alberta and have grown seedling peaches in which you can 

 see scarcely any variation from the original. After that terrible 

 year that wiped peaches and almost everything else out of existence 

 Mr. Bruning had a good crop of them. Those trees went through 

 a temperature of 40 below and then bore. Then there is Dr. Bailey 

 who is developing another family. The last of August we had a 

 regular New England sleet storm. We found the trees and every- 

 thing remained solid for nearly two days, and the frost did not come 

 off the windows until the next day, and yet it did not affect the 

 peaches. If you can raise peaches when the mercury goes 14 below 

 zero you ought to be able to raise a good crop where it goes to 25 

 below. You are surely going to bring the peach belt up this way. 

 Do not depend upon budded seedlings, but those seedlings of a true 

 variety, plant those and you can hope and expect to get good results. 

 You do not need to lay them down and cover them up. I do not be- 

 lieve it will be twenty-five years before you will be growing a splen- 

 did crop of excellent peaches here in Minnesota. There is another 

 matter I want to speak of, and that is home adornment. You are 

 going to have some of the most beautiful places on the face of the 

 earth. You can raise evergreen to place upon your farms, you have 

 the right spirit and you will adorn your places in a most beautiful 

 manner. When I come up again — I do not know when I can come 

 up again, I am 71 now — but when I come again, In ten or fifteen 

 years from now, I know I shall find things in magnificent shape. 

 (Applause.) 



The Chairman : We are gratified to hear such pleasant predic- 

 tions from Mr. Harrison, and we are willing to believe that he will 

 prove a good prophet. Mr. Harrison is a man who looks on the 

 bright side of things and works for the best interests of everybody. 

 He is a power in his own state, and we are very glad to have had the 

 benefit of his enthusiasm at our meeting. We have a number more 

 of visiting friends here from whom we would like to hear, and I 

 will ask Mr. Mitchell, of Iowa, to say a few words. 



Mr. J. B. Mitchell (Iowa) : It is with the greatest pleasure 

 that I find myself here. I have certainly enjoyed myself, and I wish 

 to thank you for the cordial reception you have given me. We 

 have been a little proud of our work in Iowa, quite so I may say, but 

 I am afraid, I really believe, we shall have to yield the medal to Min- 

 nesota. You are certainly getting ahead of us in horticulture. You 

 are making more progress, and especially in one thing which I con- 



