50 ANNUAL REPORT 



and a jjood companion for the wild tree rose which seems to seek out 

 this tree, pushing its stalks up among the cherry branches on the 

 shady banks, and hanging out its bright red blooms resting on the 

 cherry leaves, six to eight feet from the ground, in pleasing contrast 

 to the dark green of the cherry and offering the illusion of rose 

 blooms growing from the cherry. 



The next best bird fruit is the wild gooseberry, which is as abund- 

 ant here as the hazel in Minnesota, and yielding in great abundance 

 a large smooth fruit, in good demand in the market either green or 

 ripe. A drove of a hundred turkeys subsisted almost entirely upon 

 them while green, and when ripe the little wild birds leisurely har- 

 vested what there was left. None of my birds interferred with the 

 garden strawberries last summer. 



I think Mr. Brand was too severe on the sand cherry in his remarks 

 last winter. I have seen it in full bearing this year. It occupies no 

 more space than a currant bush, and bears an enormous crop of black, 

 glossy cherries about the size of the Janesville grapes. It is not a 

 fruit to eat out of hand, having a little of the acid flavor of the choke 

 cherry, but this disappears in cooking; and it is so hardy and so 

 prolific, and so handsome, and so useful for pies, cherry butter, canned 

 fruit and jelly, as reported by my neighbors who grow it, that I would 

 certainly recommend it for trial. If " so disposed," as Mrs. Gamp 

 would say, I would undertake to educate the fruit market of any town 

 near me to take the sand cherries in large quantities. 



I have not yet seen a Dakota-grown apple in this coflnty, and only 

 a few crabs; and none of the nurserymen's native plums, except a 

 single plate of De Sotas shown at our county fair. But 1 hear that in 

 Turner and Clay, the two next counties south, there were a good many 

 fine apples raised. I did not attend the Territorial fair at Mitchell, 

 being laid up at home with sundry ills the flesh is heir to. But I am 

 going up to Huron the thirteenth to meet with the Horticultural So- 

 ciety, and may then inflict on you another sapplement. 



A. word about the roses and other flowers and I am done. We 

 brought with us from Lake City and planted out in the spring of *86, 

 of the roses, our favorite damask — name unknown — the Plantier, the 

 white Scotch, the yellow Harrison, the old-fashioned Blush; the 

 Boursault climber and three kinds of moss roses, whose names are not 

 known. All these gave us handsome blooms last summer — the Bour- 

 sault having two hundred and eighty-five from one root. How is this 

 for only one year's growth after transplanting; and so much better is 

 our soil than where we used to grow the roses, that there is a marked 



