66 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



PLUMS A NEGLECTED FRUIT. 



READ BY CLARENCE WEDGE, OF ALBERT LEA, AT THE LATE MEETING 

 OF THE S. MINN. HORT. SOCIETY. 



It is a fault common to all mankind to overlook the blessings and 

 comforts with which they are surrounded, the treasures that lie at 

 their feet, and sig-h for the halcyon days of the past, for the good 

 fortune of their neighbors — for the gold hid away in the distant 

 mountains; a most unprofitable trait of human character it is to 

 those engaged in any calling or pursuit, and one we are free to say 

 has been and is today a most conspicuous enemy to our progress 

 in all horticultural lines. How often do we hear sotne owner of a 

 fine suburban lot, or a broad-acred farmer lament: " If we could 

 only raise fruit as they do in the East" — when a look into their 

 gardens would show their currant bushes producing fruit the size 

 of bird shot, when a very little intelligent care, as much as they in 

 the East have to bestow in order to conquer the currant worm, would 

 insure them fine appetizing berries the size of field peas. The 

 gooseberry, a rich, fine flavored fruit, as hardy as the hazel, might 

 be either missing altogether, or in a forsaken grass-grown corner 

 visited only to pick the berries, that nature, after a single handed 

 struggle, had been able to produce. We inight look in vain for the 

 noble strawberry, finer flavored with us than elsewhere in the world, 

 or for the dainty raspberry that, with a little checking and 

 pruning of its luxuriant nature, will devote itself so generously to 

 fruit. So, few or none of these overflows of nature's bounty to our 

 Minnesota soil are to be found; and if in wonder we inquire the 

 reason, we shall but provoke the groan: "If we could only raise 

 apples as we did in York state!" Remembering the last barrel 

 of York state apples that we ate, we venture to guess the secret of 

 the poor soul's feelings. Is it the worms he longs for? Our Minne- 

 sota apples don't harbor worms, j^ou know. Or is it the lack of scabs 

 on our beautiful Duchess that make him feel lonesoine? Or per- 

 haps he remembers that in dear old York state his Northern Spys 

 brought their first apples twenty years after planting, and has been 

 sorely disappointed in his Minnesota orchard to find his Wealthys 

 bringing a big crop six years after planting. Some people are so 

 hard to suit, you know. "But peaches, we can never raise peaches 

 in Minnesota!" Well, sad fate, perhaps not; and there's bananas and 

 cocoanuts, and alligators, and yellow fever and poor houses, none 

 of which seem to endure our terrible climate. 



But now, in all sober earnest, we would ask ever^^ fruit hungry 

 Minnesotian: Have we a right to complain of what we can't have, 

 when we are not enjoying in plenty what we may have? If there is a 

 fruit that we can have, that grows as spontaneously as the currant, 

 is as hardy as the wild grape, bears more regularly than the Duchess 

 apple, and yet is not found in abundance in one garden in fiftj' in 

 our state, is it not high time that we stopped our sour complaints 

 and set out to know and enjoy the best that is about us? 



The fruit to which we refer, and which, without flattery, possesses 

 all the virtues we have above inentioned, is the improved native 

 plum. It is no novelt3^ Here and there, scattered over our state, 



