- MINNESOTA AND ITS ADVANTAGES. 215. 
ties and to do good to the state in general. It is nota money mak- 
ing society, and when we come together here to talk these matters 
over, itis really to try to find out some better ideas of doing these 
things than we have already learned. We can raise wheat, and we 
are finding out that Minnesota is a greatcorn state. There is no 
trouble in growing everything that is a necessary of life, but we 
have in the past a great many times, even the best of us, had 
our doubts, like Mr. Smith, about our ability to raise apples in 
Minnesota. Now that.we can have fruit, can have shade trees, can 
have some of the luxuries of life to make ita little sweeter, and have 
something to make home a little more pleasant and make life a 
‘little better worth living than when we first came here to our broad 
prairies, we feel that we have made no mistake, But, my brothers 
of this society, I will say there is no state, in my opinion, and I have 
traveled in most all of them,I have traveled in over forty of them, 
there is not one among them all that I would be willing to exchange 
for Minnesota today. (Applause). It has more resources anda greater 
variety of resources than any other state in the Union. We have one 
or two states right alongside ofus that enjoy the sameconditions, 
but you get away from this state and get out on those great barren 
plains, and then go through the south and find those immense 
forests of pitch pine, the soil nothing but sand,and then go through 
Florida and find it worse, and then along the eastern coast, along 
the Carolinas and find nothing but marsh and swamp, then on 
through Virginia and see their worn out soil, then up through New 
England and find little patches here and there, from which farmers 
are endeavoring to geta living,a little patch of a quarter or half 
acre, which it takes two men to cultivate, one to lead the horse and 
the other to hold the cultivator, and every half minute it will catch 
against a rock, and before going a rod another catch, and about the 
hundredth time they get caught they break the point of the plow 
and have to stop to go to the blacksmith shop to get it repaired be- 
fore they can doany more work—and that is the way they are doing 
business today. 
Minnesota has got the three great requisites of civilization, she 
has got them in great abundance, and the three things area good 
soil, a soil that will yield everything that is necessary for man’s 
comfort, an abundance of building material, and the third is plenty 
of iron. These three are absolute essentials of civilization. Take 
away any one of them and civilization is gone. Just as soon as we 
take away the valuable soil, take away from the farmer his scythe, 
his cultivator, his harrow, his ax and all his tools made of iron and 
steel, he is reduced again to the levelof the savage. Take away from 
the carpenter his square, his hammer, his saw, take away all the 
tools he is using, and we go back to the condition of the Indian 
again. Minnesota has all these in the greatest abundance, and 
there is no state in the Union that can equal her. Now, besides 
these things necessary for life, comfortable life, and necessary to 
_ Civilization, necessary to education, culture and refinement, we are 
going to have all those things that you and I, members of this 
horticultural society, have been working for, lo, these many years. 
