372 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURA.L SOCIETY. 



BEFORE AND BEHIND THE SCENES, OR WHY FRUIT 



GROWING HAS OFTEN BEEN A FAILURE 



IN MINNESOTA. 



J. S. HARRIS, LA CRESCENT. 



The subject of this paper was of my own choosing. Having' been 

 a fruit grower and tree planter within sight of my present location 

 more than forty years with very diversified experiences and in cor- 

 respondence with the most prominent and successful fruit growers 

 of Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and this state for about thirty years, and 

 having largely made the work of my life experimental, it occurred 

 to me that I inight handle this subject in a manner that would 

 prove interesting to 3^ou and throw a little light upon the causes 

 that have led to so many failures in fruit growing in this region. 

 But I find — and I think j'ou will agree with me before I am done — 

 that I have greatly overestimated my ability. I shall endeavor to 

 confine myself in this paper chiefly to orcharding, or growing of 

 tree fruits. 



Many of the failures in the earlier years were excusable and at the 

 time unavoidable, and their causes should occupy the place "before 

 the scenes" until such time as the)' become known and can be 

 avoided. At the date when our first orchards were planted there 

 was not any guide whatever for the would-be fruit grower. No 

 matter how learned and expert a horticulturist he had been in his 

 eastern or more southern home, it availed him nothing, for the soil 

 and cliinate of his new home were entirely different from that of the 

 one he had left, and he soon found that much had to be learned 

 by experience and original observation. He had to learn that varie- 

 ties that succeeded the best under certain environments were uncer- 

 tain or totally worthless when surrounded by those that were en- 

 tirely different, and that it was not safe to plant a tree that could not 

 stand a hundred degrees of summer heat and endure a temperature of 

 forty degrees below zero. Unfortunately for him, the difference in the 

 hardiness and adaptation of varieties were unknown here, because 

 no previous tests had been made, so he had to workout the probleni 

 under great difficulties. Another cause of failure in the early days 

 was the distance that intervened between the places where the trees 

 were propagated and raised to a suitable size and where they were 

 to be planted, and the slow and uncertain facilities that existed 

 for their safe transportation, it often consuming several weeks of 

 time, and the trees arriving so late in the season and in such a con- 

 dition that it was about useless to set them out, for the little life left 

 in them would Hit away before many winter storms had swept over 

 them. Another cause was the injudicious selection of the site for the 

 orchard. Our first orchards, wherever it could be done, were set on 

 southern slopes or in warm sheltered nooks, which experience has 

 since proved were the very worst locations for an orchard, and that 

 the cool northern slope and the high, airy grounds were much the 

 best. Another trouble was that time could not be taken to give the 

 ground suitable preparation and that the mulchings, prunings and 

 protection suited for the climate were not generally understood. 



