174 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and their families of one of the most pleasant, heautiful, and profitable 

 features of farming. We must educate the farmer to love the true, the 

 good, and the heautiful— to love nature — before he will grow fruits, and 

 protect his crops with belts of forest trees, and beautify his home by sur- 

 rounding it with all kinds of hardy forest and ornamental trees, and 

 shrubs and flowers. 



1 have learned by experience that small fruits can be grown with very 

 little trouble, and therefore every farmer ought to have his table well sup- 

 plied with these delicacies. 



DISCUSSION. 



Col. Stevens: I would like to inquire if this farm is not on 

 what is called the Coteau de Bois, hilly woods? 



Judge Moyer: It is all prairie. It is right on the Coteau. 



President Elliott: It is about 1,700 feet above sea level. 



Col. Stevens: Now just on top of the hills out there they can 

 raise apples better than on the prairies. 



REPORT OF GENERAL FRUIT COMMITTEE. 



BY CLARENCE WEDGE, ALBERT LEA. 



Freeborn county this year rejoices in the largest crop of apples ever 

 harvested within her borders. Indeed, for a new thing under the sun, we 

 had a surplus, and some thousands of bushels of summer apples were 

 actually shipped out of Albert Lea. Many orchards have furnished their 

 owners with an abundance of summer fruit and enough for sale to pur- 

 chase a winter supply. 



The Duchess and Transcendent furnished the bulk of this fruit, but 

 some of the hybrids that have been planted so generally, helped to supply 

 the home market. No variety of standard apple has appeared upon the 

 market besides the Duchess, and I am safe in saying that no tree of the 

 apple kind is proving so generally hardy, productive and profitable. The 

 best orchard in our county, a half acre planted exclusively to this variety 

 twenty- two years ago, has stood in blue grass sod without any care or at- 

 tention whatever,and has yielded the owner an annual income of from $100 

 to $150. The Wealthy has been planted extensively for many years, but I 

 have yet to find a healthy tree of any great age. Still, I think it may be 

 well to plant this variety sparingly for home use. It has fruited heavily 

 this year, and appears to keep much better than usual. The Whitney I 

 am almost inclined to class with the standard apples, and place it next to 

 the Duchess. In size it will rank as a small apple, but its quality, both 

 for kitchen and dessert, is excellent, and the tree is doing well wherever I 

 have found it. The oldest I have seen measured two feet in circumference 

 of trunk. 



Of the crabs and hybrids the Early Strawberry, Orange, and an endless 

 variety of Blushes and Sweets have been largely planted, and on the farm 



