STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 18T 



for others to consider whether it may not be the river water that is 

 responsible for what we are suffering here this winter. 



President Elliot. To give some idea of the amount of stuff we are 

 turning into tbe river here, I would state that our health officer 

 stated at the meeting referred to by Mr Gray, that the city was dump- 

 ing into the river from two to seven hundred wagon loads per day. 



Mr. Pearce. It means thousands and millions of dollars wasted. 



President Elliot. The market gardeners do not properl}' estimate 

 the value of this material that is being wasted, and see the necessity 

 of saving it and carrying it back upon their lands. They are coming 

 to that point rapidly. It is high time some method was devised for 

 disposing of this material, and having it deposited on the land in 

 proper shape. 



Prof. Folwell. I would like to hear from some nurseryman of the 

 neighborhood as to how far fertilization is necessary, and how much 

 can be used. 



Mr. Pearce. We can use seventy -five loads of manure on an acre; 

 our market gardeners are using that quantity now of stable manure. 

 In the vicinity of Lake Minnetonka we could use that amount per 

 acre on a section of land. We ought to have it, and the amount of 

 manure that could be supplied by the city of Minneapolis is inade- 

 quate to supply the demand. 



Mr. Gray. We calculate to use from fifty to seventy-five tons to 

 the acre. If we use cow manure we put on fifty tons per acre, and if 

 we use coarser material mixed, we put on still more. It is not profit- 

 able in market gardening operations to lower that amount any one 

 season. If we do there is a falling off in the crop produced. 



President Elliot. We would like to hear from Mr. Hale, the secre- 

 tary of our board of trade. 



Mr. Hale. Mr. President, I guess I have got into the wrong place, 

 but perhaps I can manage to get out. I have never been more inter- 

 ested in mj^ life than by the reading of the paper just read by Col. 

 Folwell, and for various reasons. Later on I may have occasion to 

 speak of what I have done in my own garden. 



When you come to take into account, Mr. President, that it is uo 

 longer ago than 1837 when Franklin Steele, now dead, entered the 

 first land on the other side of the river, it is but a short time. Since 

 that time a city has grown up here of 160,000 or 170,000 people. 

 Every man that has come here has come with the intention to benefit 

 his condition financially. Taking into account the shortness of the 

 time and the object of the people in coming here, there has not been 



