HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 181 



one of those searching, scorching winds coming from the south 

 and west, and when we have thought that some of your winds 

 were cooking and drying up our leaves and the wind was fairly 

 tearing up our vegetables out of the earth, we may have felt very 

 much like returning the compliment. 



As perhaps many of you are aware, Manitoba is to a certain 

 extent, so far as the cultivated fruits are concerned, a fruitless 

 country. We have the wild plum; we have the raspberry; and 

 in speaking of this I am reminded that Prof. Saunders, of Ot- 

 tawa, was up to my place this last autumn and picked some 

 raspberries from a cane that was growing in the edge of my 

 garden, and said he thought I was wasting my time in trying to 

 cultivate tame varieties when I could grow such excellent wild 

 ones right out in the woods. Unfortunately, however, those wild 

 ones don't bear as well as we want them to, hence we have to 

 plant the Turner and the Philadelphia — although I believe you 

 have ruled that variety out, and perhaps I had better not say 

 anything about that — and the Cuthbert and some others; and I 

 have been trying them on a small scale. 



Strawberries have been a partial failure, but have only been 

 tried to a limited extent. They have planted a few in gardens 

 in "Winnipeg, but the soil there and all about Winnipeg is of a 

 nature that if you happen to get off the sidewalk on a street that 

 has not been well taken care of in very muddy weather, unless 

 your boots stick very well to your feet you will be apt to lose 

 something in that sticky mud that prevails at such times in 

 Winnipeg. I think practical fruit growers look upon that 

 heavy soil as being unsuitable for growing fruit until there has 

 been thorough drainage. However, all the soil of Manitoba isn't 

 like that. In the part of the country where I live, some twenty 

 miles north of Winnipeg, we have a sandy loam upon a limestone 

 foundation. Located eighteen miles southwest of Lake Winnipeg 

 and eighteen miles southeast of Lake Manitoba, we think we are 

 favorably situated upon a sort of water-shed, which has con- 

 siderable influence so far as regards the growing of fruits. 



In addressing you I speak feelingly, for the reason that 

 although separated by international boundary lines, I feel the 

 right hand of fellowship has been extended by honorable mem- 

 bers of your Society in helping to introduce fruits into Manitoba 

 more than by my own country people. 



I heard something said here this morning about the mulber- 

 ries which reminded me of a conversation with the premier on 



