HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 357 



ANNUAL ADDEESS OF A. W. SIAS, PKESIDENT OF 



THE SOUTHEEN MINN SOTA HOETICUL- 



TUEAL SOCIETY. 



Delivered at Rochester, Jan. 7th, 1890. 



Members and Friends of the S. M. H. S. Society. 



We are permitted to greet each other once again, and although 

 from our limited working membership, it would almost indicate 

 that certain persons who should be interested in our work, were 

 disposed to boycott us, yet, through the kindness and liberty of 

 the press, we are enabled to reach a large number, and should not 

 be discouraged. As our former secretary remarked, "we are here 

 for business." And now let us grapple with that most important 

 and difficult problem for solution, known to our fraternity, viz.: 

 Winter fruit. Some might suppose that it looked rather too pre- 

 sumptuous on our part, to imagine that "Dame Nature" should 

 condescend to yield up one of her greatest horticultural secrets, to 

 a small society like this, when so many other larger and richer or- 

 ganizations were standing with open arms to receive it. The fol- 

 lowing dialogue will explain matters. Dame Nature. — Your soci- 

 ety is the only institution of the kind in the Northwest, that recog- 

 nizes, and truly appreciates the fact, that "God made the country," 

 while "man made the city." You have held all your Summer 

 meetings in the primeval forest, you have honored yourselves while 

 attempting to honor me. You have in this praiseworthy act placed 

 yourselves nearer to my great warm heart, than you possibly could 

 have done, had you seen fit, as others did, to have performed your 

 work within high brick walls. And then I noticed while the gal- 

 lant leaders of other societies were coquetting with sweet, rosy 

 cheeked, doll faced Miss Plum, whose beauty fades so quickly, and 

 stuffing her too with the adulator's remark, that she was the most 

 precious gem of the forest, you as stoutly contended for the Apple, 

 "the king of all fruits." And now, as a suitable recompense for 

 this steadfastness in the way of truth and justice, I am about to 

 yield up to your tender care, one of the most rich and glorious 

 secrets, ever before revealed to any similar institution. There is 

 millions in it. It means not only wealth, but health, and a wond- 

 erful increase of members to your society, viz : take the wild winter 

 apple of Minnesota, (Pyrus Coronaria) that I have been fitting up 

 to supply the millions of people that are now so rapidly settling 

 up this vast Northwestern territory. Fitting up, on the great plan 

 of the "survival of the fittest" through the ever changing seed pro- 

 tection, commencing far, far back beyond the remotest dates of 

 prehistoric times. To supply this aching void for winter fruit, hy- 

 bridize the Pyrus coronaria,\\ith some rich flavored, hardy, thick 

 bark, and thick leaved, red colored Eussian variety. Do this, and 

 in a few years, vast commercial orchards, will spring up like magic, 



