STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 55 



shadow of doubt. My view is this, that we as a Society should not 

 put out aMX'thino: at a station but what we have tested ourselves. We 

 should be able to describe the variety of tree aud to give the number 

 that failed to srow. E ch m^m in charge of a station should have a 

 duty to perform and he should be governed by that duty Our experi- 

 ments ought to be such as would warraat success. JTow, I take it 

 that after I have experimented on certain things I ought to be able to 

 say, do thus and so and you will get a crop I am in favor of fruit 

 and forestry stations where we can put our trees and say that we 

 know the}' will grow. That is the general view I take of it. An ex- 

 perimenter is an export and he h;is got to use his experience. His 

 experience is used, it becomes developed and established with regard 

 to any variety, and then anybody can grow it. When Columbus 

 broke the egg and made it stand alone, anybody could do it. 



^Ir. Sias. I consider this paper of Mr. Dartt's a very valuable one 

 and I would like to hear it fully discussed. I believe that there are 

 several other papers to be read upon this subject and I suggest 

 whether it would not be better to hear those and have them all dis- 

 cussed at one time; certainly there should be a full discussion on the 

 matter of experiment stations. 



Mr. Dartt. Mr. President, I agree with Mr. Sias in regard to the 

 propriety of delaying discussion until the other reports are in. 



Mr. Harris. The reports from experiment stations come in the last 

 day. [ am very much in favor of experiment stations. Experience is 

 a dear school, but it is one in which we can learn something. I be- 

 lieve we ought to have an experiment station in every county in the 

 State of Minnesota, and that those stations in a certain measure 

 ought to be under the control of the State Horticultural Society. I 

 am speaking of horticultural experiment stations We ought to have 

 men in charge of these stations who have the capacity to manage 

 them. For instance, we might have one man to conduct experiments 

 upon one line, and another in another department. One man may 

 succeed in growing seedling apples, another in small fruit; while here 

 and there we may find a man who has the ability to conduct experi- 

 ments successfully along the whole line. 



The field for experiment in this State is a very broad one. It is well 

 known that we have met with a series of reverses in our endeavors to 

 grow the apple; to-day we dare not stand out and say to the world 

 that we can grow the apple successfully here. But by testing Russian 

 varieties and new seedlings, and planting the seeds of these Russian 

 varieties and of the best seedlings and crossing them, we may hope in 



