80 ANNUAL REPORT 



ral work a portiou ot the time, and devote a part of the year to 

 forestry. If we had ten acres of timber on every quarter section 

 in the State, with groves and timber belts about farm buildings, 

 there would be no question in regard to raising apples in Min- 

 nesota. We ought to encourage forestry and have forests plant- 

 ed throughout the Northwest. It seems to me that the climatic 

 conditions are getting more unfavorable; I used to raise fruit, but 

 since they have been clearing the pine timber from the head 

 waters of the Mississippi we have been suffering great losses, as 

 the cutting away of these barriers has a tendency to bring the 

 north winds down upon us. We ought to bring a sentiment to 

 bear uj)0u our state and national legislators which would cause 

 them to protect our timber, even if they had to send an army to 

 put these timber thieves where they belong. 



Mr. Kramer. A good many years ago, when I lived in Indiana, 

 I knew a farmer there who had no timber on his land, and he 

 planted out ten acres to hickory nuts, planting one nut in each 

 hill of corn. The next year he planted his corn in the middle of 

 the rows, and took off two crops of corn. When the hickory trees 

 were four years old they were cut and they would sprout up again, 

 leaving three or four sprouts to each hill. He had a better crop 

 from that land than anything else he could raise, by selling the 

 hoop-poles. 



Mr. Pearce. Mr. President, there is no question but we have 

 made a great mistake in not propagating timber, and we have 

 got to do it yet. I know by the cultivation of timber we increase 

 moisture. If every farmer would expend a little money, not 

 over a hundred dollars perhaps, in planting out trees, something 

 that will grow and make a timber belt, he would have little dif- 

 ficulty in growing fruit. 



The following j)aper was then read: 



EEVIEW OF THE VEGETABLE EXHIBIT AT THE 

 STATE FAIR. 



By J. T. Grimes, Minneapolis. 



The twenty-eighth annual fair of the State Agricultural Society 

 was held at the Fair grounds, Aug. 30 to Sept. 4, 1880, inclusive, 

 at which the management, for the first time, placed the vegetable 

 department entirely under the charge of the State Horticultural 

 Society, the president of which appointed me to take charge of 

 . that department. 



