214 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
closely because one tree will protect another. I am girdling 
every other tree in those rows, and I expect to bring those trees into 
bearing early, which is one advantage of girdling. If it kills them 
itis all right,as I expect to get ridof them later. I think I can 
have half of that orchard come into bearing early, and the other 
trees will not be injured by not girdling them. In that way I can 
protect my trees by close planting and have desirable results follow, 
Mr. T. T. Smith: How close do you plant to get those results? 
Mr. Bush: I planted those trees ten feet apart. It is altogether 
too close to let them remain. 
MINNESOTA AND ITS ADVANTAGES. 
REMARKS BY PROF. W. W. PENDERGAST. 
Mr. President: I can appreciate the saying that nobody knows 
just where lightning is going to strike. My friend Owen got way 
back in the rear of the room, thinking he would not be called upon 
there. I managed to get an invitation to sit beside the president as 
assistant and thought I would be safe there, but there is no escap- 
ing. I am a good deal like the tramp who was making his way 
through Pittsburg and stopped at a house and asked if the good 
woman of the house had a cord of wood she would like to have him 
saw up. She told him no, they did not burn wood. ‘ Well,” he 
asked, “can I carry your coal in for you and make myself useful in 
some way?” “No,” she said, “there is nothing for you to do in that 
line; we do not use coal here.” He was nonplused for a moment, 
then he asked, “ What do you burn here?” She said, ‘“ We burn gas.” 
‘‘Well,” he said, “can I turn on the gas for you?” (Laughter), I 
suppose our friend, the president, has called on me to turn on the 
gas. 
I will say I have had some experience during the forty years or 
better that I have lived in Minnesota in raising fruit. The first 
thing I did was to plant some apple trees, for which I sent way back 
to the old Granite State, and since then I have kept dabbling in 
fruit of different kinds, and now I have gota little orchard of five 
hundred trees that are all looking well, and some of them have borne 
in the past two years, and I have great hopes; and I want to say that 
my success has been in a great measure, if not altogether, owing to 
this very society. Now, if we can have somebody to stir usupa 
little and give usa punch under the fifth rib, it will do us good, 
otherwise we are apt to go to sleep and let things take their own 
way; but every time I step into a meeting like this I say to myself, 
I will take a little more pains with those apple trees, I will give 
some of them better care, I will get some of those better kinds, and 
I will throw out some of those I have already condemned myself 
when I see them condemned by others. I condemned the Tetofsky; 
I tried it a great many times, and every time I touched it I dropped 
it like a hot potato. I want nothing to do with the Tetofsky and the 
Hyslop, while the Ben Davis is a close third. 
The members of this society meet here for a purpose, and that 
purpose, as near asI can find out, is to do good to their communi- 
