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SOUTH DAKOTA FRUIT GROWER. 255 
few men are meeting with fair success in growing fruit. And every 
successful orchard in the state becomes an object lesson of the 
highest value, encouraging and teaching every passer-by the lesson 
that to some seems hard to learn, the lesson of successful fruit cul- 
ture. 
Many of our farmers find it exceedingly difficult to get trees, even 
from well established nurseries, that are true to name, and hardly 
ever is this possible from tree agents. Asa rule, these agents find a 
nursery overstocked with undesirable trees, which they buy at 
a great reduction in prices, then re-label and send out for whatever 
the order calls; and as most of our trees have been bought from 
roaming agents, is it any wonder that so many of them have failed? 
Under the prevailing system, it is essential that live nurseries 
have agents to advertise their stock, for not one farmer’in one thou- 
sand would ever go to the nursery at the proper season to procure 
the necessary trees and shrubs to plant a farm., 
We feel and believe that if we were able to control the varieties 
and quality of the supplies that will be planted in the state for the 
next five years, that we could do more for tie fruit growing indus- 
try of the state than could be done in any other way. Butas long 
as nurserymen will send out any of the tender varieties as suitable 
stock for our planting, we are under the influence and at the mercy 
of these men whose interests are not with us. So what we need first 
of all are good, honest, interested and experienced men, who will use 
their influence as to varieties and will send out only those that are 
sure to stand. In this way they can gain the confidence as well as 
the patronage of the true farmer. 
We have come to believe that the cold winters are not our worst 
enemies but rather that our high, dry atmosphere, which is so 
abundant in all parts of our state, is the severest test of hardiness. 
From experience we know trees from an atmosphere as dry as ours 
though much warmer will stand much better than those from moist 
atmosphere even though located in colder climates. At different 
times planters have tried to avoid this failing in the trees by start- 
ing small nurseries in the semi-arid belts, thinking that trees grown 
there would stand the dry atmosphere, but too small a percentage 
of the grafts live through the first winter or on account of the 
_ drought ever start atall. The main trouble came through the ten- 
der roots killing out during the winter, but this is partially over- 
come by the use of Siberian stocks or propagation by means of the 
cutting graft. Since we realize that most of our supplies must come 
from moist atmospheres, we must select those varieties that will 
stand the drought. 
Eastern and southeastern Dakota’s climatic conditions are very 
moist as compared with the central and western parts of our state. 
Several varieties of trees are known to do weli in the eastern part 
which utterly fail in the west. The hard, or sugar, maple which isa 
native of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Canada and recently found in South 
Dakota, where the atmosphere is cold but damp, fails completely in 
those parts of the state where it is very dry. The Golden prune 
a native of California, is a grand success in parts of our state. Itis 
