108 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Washington. Says we can grow plums, but thinks the supply of 

 cherries will never be equal to the demand of the birds. 



Mrs. Downer says the little, almost invisible red spider is the 

 greatest enemy to house plants and washing them in soapsuds is a 

 certain remedy, two applications being sufficient. 



E. D. Cowles on "Out-Door Flowering Plants," plants mostly 

 in rows five feet apart and cultivates with two-horse cultivator. 

 Bachelor button is the most popular flower ; phlox, poppies, zinnias, 

 sweet peas and pansies are among the best ; sweet peas and pansies 

 will not stand cultivation ; a bed of poppies eight feet wide and i6o 

 feet long could be distinctly seen one mile away. 



Hon. H. W. Lathrop, of Iowa City, Iowa, in a paper on "How 

 to Produce the Coming Apple of South Dakota," said, plant trees of 

 the Malinda along with the Duchess, Whitney, Hibernal, etc., where 

 the pollen will mix, or take the same class of trees and top-work with 

 Malinda and plant seeds of the latter. Mr. C. W. Gurney ex- 

 pressed himself as being almost of the opinion that if the art of graft- 

 ing had not been discovered, and, instead, our attention had been di- 

 rected to plant breeding, horticulture would have been further ad- 

 vanced. Prof. Hansen was of the opinion that some time in the 

 future all of our most valuable fruits will have in them more or less 

 of the blood of our native fruits. He has seen wild crabs two and 

 one-half inches in diameter. 



Prof. Hansen here read his paper on "Breeding Hardy Native 

 Fruits." The points came so fast that I could not keep track of 

 them, but the general idea was that he was gathering wherever he 

 could in the northwest and planting the hardiest of wild fruits of 

 all kinds along with the best cultivated fruits of their kind, in such 

 a way that the pollen would mix, and planting great quantities of the 

 resultant hybridized seed and making selections from these hybrid 

 seedlings. This, in the course of time, will give the northwest a 

 pomology that is distinctly its own. 



Thursday Morning Session. — I am indebted to Mr. C. E. Older, 

 of Luverne, Minn., for the following notes of this session : Place 

 of next annual meeting, Sioux Falls. The summer meeting will be 

 held in Brookings, at the Experiment Station ; date to be set by 

 the secretary. The following officers were elected : President, H.^ 

 M. Avery, of Sioux Falls ; vice-president, A. Norby, of Madison*; 

 treasurer, M. J. DeWolf, Letcher; librarian, E. D. Cowles, Vermil- 

 ion. In conclusion, will say it will pay us greatly to encourage this 

 band of earnest workers, who never have been recognized by getting 

 an appropriation from the state and get no reduced railroad or hotel 

 rates — as one of the number put it, "work for nothing and board our- 

 selves and pay for the privilege of doing it." Their papers, if printed 

 in our reports, will be of especial value to the western prairie sec- 

 tion of Minnesota. Although South Dakota extends quite a bit 

 south of the Minnesota line, outside of the Missouri valley, owing 

 to their more severe drought conditions I am satisfied that any 

 fruits that they can succeed with in their prairie sections, we can also 

 succeed with in southern Minnesota. 



