108 ANNUAL REPORT 



I will merely mention that the present products of the 

 orchards, gardens and plantations, are the wonderful results of 

 a proper system of hybridizing — the transmitting the pollen of 

 the blossom from one kindred to another, the budding and graft- 

 ing of one variety with another variety. The educated hand of 

 man has accomplished all of these things, but we should always 

 remember that the primitive wild fruits of the different parts of 

 the globe, is the fountain head from which the luxuries of the 

 orchards of the present day abound; nor should we forget the 

 fact that the wild fruit of Minnesota had, and has to this day 

 great merit. In the absence of the tame varieties, the wild to 

 the emigration of colonial times was indispensable. In many in- 

 stances the native plum was scarcely inferior to the most favored 

 sorts; the strawberry of the prairie — small, but strongly im- 

 pregnated with the peculiar pleasing flavor incident to that fruit. 

 It was full of saccharine matter — more so perhaps, than the 

 most favored variety of to-day. The raspberry that skirted the 

 brush lands and also found on the margins and in the openings 

 of the wood lands was of delicious flavor fit for the table of the 

 gods; the blackberry of the deep green forest scarcely inferior 

 in flavor to the Lawton; the cranberry of the marsh and the 

 high bush of the wood land, the former abundant in central Min- 

 nesota; the blueberry of the numerous swamps in the more- 

 northerly parts of the territory with all the characteristics of the 

 whortleberry and huckleberry of the Middle and Eastern states;, 

 the gooseberry so abundant in the big woods; the black currant 

 which had not imparted all of its value to the Naples. There 

 were also several varieties of wild cherries but of no especial 

 merit True some of our early vendors of poor whisky used to 

 gather the common black cherries in great quantities and de- 

 posit them in their fiery liquids to improve their flavor. 



Originally Minnesota had not only a variety of native fruits, 

 but it had also a rich flora, as well as numerous plants of medi- 

 cal value. It could not be otherwise when a thorough knowl- 

 edge of her climate and soil was understood. On the shores of 

 her rivers, on the borders of her lakes, where the sun of sum- 

 mer shines for fifteen or sixteen hours a day with a heat equal 

 to the tropics, large numbers ol fruits and i^lants peculiar to 

 the South abound. In her dense forests, in an early day, when 

 the soil was a deep vegetable mould, many of the native varie- 

 ties of fruits and plants peculiar to the Middle States were also 

 found; and so in a measure to-day, but not as numerous as in 



