200 ANNUAL REPORT 



PilOF. NORTHROP' S ADDRESS. 



Mr. Presideiit, Ladies and Gentlemeri of the State Horticultural 

 Society : 



I have accepted your kind invitation to speak to you this 

 evening, not for the purpose of delivering a literary address or 

 a treatise on horticulture, but in order to say a few things re- 

 specting agricultural education, which I think it is well for the 

 State that I should say and say now. 



It has been my good fortune to become reasonably well ac- 

 quainted with your purposes and investigations through the 

 annual reports which yoa have published, and I come before 

 you to-night with a very sincere respect for you and your work. 

 Yon have taken hold of that department of agriculture which 

 most imperatively requires special attention here in Minnesota, 

 and which more than any other needs the aid of science and the 

 teachings of experience. You have prosecuted this work with 

 a zeal worthy of all commendation, and with a measure of suc- 

 cess for which the entire State ought to be grateful. Many of 

 the papers published in the record of your proceedings are 

 worthy of careful study; and those are not wanting which show 

 the writers to be as refined in taste and as sensible to beauty and 

 as appreciative of the utility of beauty, as the most cultured 

 literary artists. Such a paper is that by Mr J. S. Harris, in 

 ''The Model Farmer's Garden," in which occurs a description of 

 what a farmer's home should be, which, if realized to auy con 

 siderable extent, woiTld add not a little to the happiness of farm- 

 ers and their families. But, gentlemen, you have done much 

 more than to publish excellent papers. But a few years ago it 

 was supposed that Minnesota was too cold for the successful cul- 

 tivation of fruit. But you thought otherwise. You exj)eri- 

 mented and persisted in your experiments when the results were 

 most discouraging. By your wise perseverance and intelligent 

 skill you have made Minnesota the prize bearer of the nation for 

 excellence of apples; you have made it almost the peer of any 

 in the abundance and deliciousness of grapes; you have made 

 strawberries, the most luscious of all small fruits, not only plenty 

 but of great variety and of the highest excellence — while every 

 table in Minnesota is a 'debtor to you for a variety of food pro- 

 duced here at home, and most conducive to comfort and to 

 health. In the i)rosecution of this work the names of Gideon, 

 Pearce, Harris, Elliot, and others whom I need not mention, 



