394 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



HORTICULTURE AT THE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR, 



1896. 



A. W. LATHAM, SEC'Y. 



The fruit exhibit at the late fair was especially notable on account 

 of its unusual as well as unexpected size. The preparations made, 

 which were thought to be ample for all contingencies, proved to be 

 altogether inadequate. All the available space on the World's Fair 

 booth was called into use, and by close crowding a little room was 

 gained in the half of the hall devoted to the county exhibits. To 

 show all the fruit desired to be exhibited in competition, it was even 

 necessary to resort to the unusual plan of removing that which had 

 already been passed upon to make waj' for a second display. With 

 all this crowding, of course, the general appearance of the exhibit 

 was materially interfered with, as fruit never shows to good advan- 

 tage when unduly crowded. A rough estimate shows some fifty- 

 five exhibitors of apples, from"Uncle" Harris as the leading exhibitor, 

 with in the neighborhood of 250 plates, down to some who had only 

 a single plate of some choice variety. A number of the regulars 

 thought their fruit too small for showing on account of the late, dry 

 seasons and failed to appear, but the fruit in sight did not warrant 

 the inference that any small or undersized fruit was being grown in 

 Minnesota. For size, color and freedom from bleinish, it stood very 

 high. Probably, in all two thousand plates of apples were shown in 

 the competitive exhibits. This does not include the very attractive 

 and instructive array of Russian apples, one hundred and seventy- 

 five varieties sent by Prof. J. L. Budd from the Iowa Agricultural 

 College and so well arranged by his assistant, Mr. J. Sexton It 

 was a pleasure to make the acquaintance of Mr. Sexton, and many 

 availed themselves of the opportunity to gain information about 

 this interesting class of apples. A photograph was taken of this 

 collection, which our readers will have an opportunity to see in 

 a later number. In this connection we quote from a letter of Prof. 

 Budd: 



"Two-thirds of our varieties this year are not over one-third their usual size. 

 The reasons are (1) our orchard is on a hard-pan sub-soil witliin five feet of the 

 surface, (2) our trees bore heavily in 1895, and most of them were very heavily 

 loaded this season. 



"The drouth with the heavy crop of 1895 lowered the vitality of the trees. 



"At our state fair grown in different sub-soils, we had over one hundred Russian 

 varieties of unusual size but not from o»r orchard." 



While the fruit was somewhat undersized, as Prof. Budd states, 

 the exhibit was nevertheless a very handsome, attractive and valu- 

 able one, and we are much their debtor for the trouble taken in pre- 

 paring it. At the close of the fair, through the courtesy of Mr. Sex- 

 ton we were permitted to keep this fruit for further exhibition at 

 our annual meeting in December. What was reserved for this pur- 

 pose, together with considerable froin our own exhibitors, has been 

 placed in cold storage in Minneapolis. 



An exhibit of about fifty varieties of apples was shown from our 

 state experiment station at the University Farm, which is generally 

 thought not to be very well located for apple culture. 



