34 ANNUAL REPORT 



devour with eagefness. A great change is taking place in the habits 

 of our people. As the mobbing of Lovejoy and the hanging of John 

 Brown presaged the downfall of slavery, so sure does the murder of 

 Rev. Mr. Haddock presage the downfall of the liquor traffic. Already 

 the foes of good society and happy homes are on the run and getting 

 liard knocks from every quarter. With the decrease of the consump- 

 tion of intoxicating drink, the demand for the finest of fruits is in- 

 creasing. Though I am not much of a prophet, I predict that in less 

 .than two years Minnesota will have a prohibition liquor law, and 

 that double the amount of fruit will be consumed that there is at pres- 

 ent. What a pleasing contrast this will be to the present condition 

 of things. To-day the father toils for a dollar and at night goes to a 

 isaloon and spends it for liquor, which places him in a condition lower 

 than that of the lowest brute, while his wife and children are covered 

 with rags and are suffering from hunger and cold. In the good time 

 coming part of his hard earned dollars will be spent for fruit, another 

 part of them for a nice lot of vegetables, his family will be well 

 clothed and fed and his evenings spent at home and all will be happy. 

 This beautiful valley and the surrounding country is the natual 

 home of several kinds of delicious fruits. Strawberries, raspberries 

 grapes and plums are found growing wild, and we see no reason why 

 strawberries and raspberries .of largest size and finest quality and 

 grapes equal to those of Minnetonka, which took the highest premiums 

 at the American Poraological Society, Philadelphia, and later at the 

 World's Pair at New Orleans, cannot be grown in abundance. 



Well, there, the good wife says, it is the indifference of the men, not 

 of the ladies, that causes such a scarcity of these luxuries. That if 

 the women could have their way every garden and farm would have a 

 good sized berry patch. My experience has shown me that the good 

 wife is right. Not only your wives but your children crave these 

 greatest of nature's blessings. I have had the old widow, bowed 

 down with age and crippled with rheumatism so that she could 

 scarcely walk, come many miles to see the big berries and ask for the 



privilege of pickihg a few, they looked so nice. And then when I 



have taken them to town to see the youngsters flock around the crates 



and look with longing eyes at the scarlet fruit. 



I feel to-night like appealing to every man in our county who owns 



any laud to set apart some of it for a berry patch, buy a few dozen 



plants of the best kinds and then care for them. 



Perhaps you may say you do not know what to buy, or how to care 



for them. To this I will say that it is the mission of our society »to 



