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66 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. & 
THE PROGRESS OF HORTICULTURE IN WESTERN 
MANITOBA. 
H. L, PATMORE, BRANDON, MANITOBA, 
If you look at the map of North America, you will find that 
western Manitoba is a stretch of land lying to the north of North 
Dakota. It is a prairie country, open to the winds which sweep 
over it from the west; of very high altitude, with few rivers or water 
stretches and away from the atmospheric influences of the lake 
region; with a climate which is very different from that of eastern 
Manitoba or of Minnesota, it being of higher altitude and witha 
drier atmosphere, and with very little bush or mountain land. Its 
soil is very varied, from light sands and gravel subsoil to rich sandy 
and clay loams, the average being a rich sandy loam. 
It is a country where the history of horticulture has been a series 
of failures and disappointments until many began to think that the 
cultivation of trees, fruits and horticultural products generally 
were impossible and that it was useless to waste any further 
efforts in planting trees and plants which, although often growing 
thrifty at first, would generally die back the first or second winter. 
But now in 1897, we are able to tell you, the members of the 
Minnesota State Horticultural Society, of progress of horticulture 
in the Canadian West, for recent years have proved to us that there 
are possibilities for successful horticulture even here. Considerable 
progress has already been made in the cultivation of the small 
fruits and in the growing of many varieties of ornamental trees, 
shrubbery, plants, etc., which have been fdéund to be hardy and 
useful here, not only on the well-cared-for grounds of the experi- 
mental farms, butin the towns and villages, and also by the farmers 
and dwellers on the exposed prairie. 
The pages of the Minnesota horticultural magazine are very 
interesting reading to us here. You have had many of the 
‘experiences in horticultural pursuits which are now falling to our 
lot. Your state was at one time at the same stage at which we now 
are, with many untried possibilities awaiting development, and we 
can learn much to guide us from the successes and failures which 
you record. The remarkable showing which you have made in the 
cultivation of fruits in the state of Minnesota in the last few years 
cannot fail to impress us with the idea that when once we, like 
yourselves, have found how to overcome our defect or effect of 
climate, we may be able toturn our horticultural possibilities into 
horticultural realities, and that the range of successful horticulture 
will be carried still further north to aid and increase the future 
comfort and prosperity of the people who dwell on these fertile 
prairies. 
When the first settlers came to this western country from the 
older provinces of the east, they remembered the orchards of their 
former homes and, doubtless, thinking that land which was so 
favorable to the growth of grain would also be favorable to the 
growth of trees, they procured and planted some of the varieties 
they were most familiar with, in the virgin soil around their new 
