122 ANNUAL REPORT 



world. Now, here is a county that is, perhaps, just as good as 

 Fillmore, but in place of twenty-five thousand inhabitants it has 

 only fifty or five hundred, and only a few individuals making any 

 effort to raise fruit What kind of a report will we get from there ? 

 Now, I think the way is to establish an experiment station which 

 would cost the society really nothing. Put some good man at the 

 head of it; let him test all those varieties, and we would get a 

 report that we could depend upon. 



Mr. Harris. Mr. Pearce favors experiment stations in every 

 county in the state. If we could have experiment stations it would 

 be all right; but who is going to run them? I think these county 

 experiment stations are a failure, and will be until this society has 

 some resources. Now, the working resources of this society is 

 from $150 to $200 a year. If we could have a society with a mem- 

 bership of one thousand the influence it would give us would 

 bring us any amount of appropriations we wanted, then we could 

 establish experiment stations in the state, and see that the man 

 who was running them accomplished something. 



Mrs. Kennedy. I would like to ask if it is fair to say that Min- 

 nesota is not a fruit growing state, when it is just because we are so 

 ignorant that we don't know how to raise it? I say take money 

 and put it into a map, and show that apples can be raised here, 

 and diffuse it all over the prairie and we will raise apples. 

 (Applause.) 



President Elliot. In regard to what friend Pearce says, in speak- 

 ing of experiment stations, he wasn't here last night, and didn't hear 

 what I had to say in regard to them. Our experiment work has 

 been done heretofore voluntarily; there has been no one held re- 

 sponsible for that work, none to overlook it, and no one ever felt 

 called upon to report to anyone, even to the State Horticultural 

 Society. From work of that class, we are not receiving the amount 

 of experiment knowledge we should, and we never will have any 

 better until we get the number down to about eight stations, 

 judiciously located, having regard to what we want to experiment 

 with. I would not experiment with Duchess apples away up in 

 the light part of that map; I think that would be foolhardy; it 

 would be time thrown away; but we can locate bwo stations in the 

 lower part; one in a favorable, and one in an unfavorable place. 

 We can pick out the worst location we can find for the crab apples 

 and also the most favorable location, and see what kinds we can 

 grow; and then take our small fruits and see what can be developed 

 up in the north part. They tell us that strawberries, raspberries, 

 black currants and gooseberries, grow in Manitoba. If that is so, 



