STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 107 



•devoid of every comfort, wife shoeless and children crying for 

 bread, they have worked on with devotion worthy better results. 

 Think you i3oliticians, lawyers, doctors, mechanics, artisans, 

 ministers of the gospel, that you have been more devoted to your 

 professions than these workers that place upon your tables lus- 

 cious fruits, in your parlors and drawing rooms, beautiful flow- 

 ers, and surround your homes with taste and adornment? Have 

 you ever stopped to think how much you owe to this profession? 

 Whatever success we have attained has been by patient, pains- 

 faking research, gleaning a little knowledge here and there; but 

 the greatest teacher has been close observation and practical 

 experience in the garden, the orchard and on the farm. 



God has instituted certain laws with certain iDrinciples for 

 governing his universe, and man must conform to those laws to 

 obtain cert-ain results. That there is a cause for all our failures 

 no one doubts. The reason for our want of success in certain ex- 

 periments has occupied the best thoughts of our leading iDomolo- 

 gists and horticulturists hundreds of years. Whenever an at- 

 tempt has been made to cultivate certain fruits above certain 

 latitudes it has thus far i^roved a failure.^ Frost is king, and 

 our most experienced experts in horticulture have not beenable. 

 to ward off his icy touch. Many of the trees with which we have 

 experimented will not endure a freezing teniperatare: others, 

 while not killed, are seriously injured by our long winters, and 

 it is conceded that a heavy frost in early fall, beibre the wood 

 has j)roperly matured, and while the sap is flowing, often in- 

 jures trees that seem hardy enough to endure the coldest winter. 



In the Minnesota Horticultural Eeport for 1881, page 41, 

 Prof. Porter says: "Why vitality is destroyed by a low 

 temperature is an unsolved question;" giving us to understand 

 that it may be at some future time. I think we have much yet 

 to learn in the acclimation of the Russian apple before it will 

 prove entirely satisfactory. That it has some good ijoints we 

 must all admit; coming as it does inured to rigorous cold, we 

 hope it may j)rove all its most sanguine friends anticipate. 

 With these, as with all other new varieties, we should h^ 

 cautious concerning extensive planting until fully persuaded 

 that success is perched upon its banners. 



In Hemslej'*s Hardy Trees and Fruits, page 563, on '"Climate, 

 its Influence on Vegetation," he says: "It is now universally 

 conceded that no process of acclimatization can succeed i n mak- 

 ing a plant frost proof even to the extent of one degree." Xow, 



