ANNUAL WINTER MEETING. 101 
sweeps away the hopes of years, and the thriving orchards are converted 
into a wilderness of blackness and desolation. How completely his bark 
has been wrecked by the evil influences of blight, drought, freezing cold in 
the winter and alternate freezing and thawing in the spring, is realized 
only by the old nursery campaigner. Then there is the foreign tree ped- 
dler, with his tempting display of pictured specimens, embellished with 
all the resources of the lithographer’s art. Artful in manner, glib of 
tongue, and profuse in promises, he palms off his stock of unacclimated 
and tender varieties upon the too credulous farmer, rakes in his shekels 
or an equivalent in good negotiable paper, and goes his way rejoicing, 
never to return. Alas for the honest home nurseryman who next travels 
that way! He reaps the harvest of maledictions that was sown in the 
dishonest practices of his knavish predecessor. What wonder that the 
old timers among the Minnesota fruit growers, who have borne the bur- 
den and heat of the day, show in their furrowed faces, whitening and 
scanty locks and stooping shoulders, the effect of the arduous struggles 
from which they have not yet fairly emerged. But yet there is light 
ahead, encouraging them to advance with stronger assurance than ever 
before. There is hope that the Peerless will justify the sanguine antici- 
pations of the propagator and take rank by the side of the Duchess asa 
hardy tree for all localities, and that improved methods of protection 
will serve to add largely to the list that can be safely recommended for 
general cultivation. 
As memory recalls the early veterans whose efforts were combined to 
launch the small bark that bore the pennant of the Minnesota Horti- 
cultural Society in its early career—Robertson, Hoag, Stevens, Harris, 
Harkness, Jewell, Humphrey, Elliot and others whose names appear in 
the archives of the organization, some of whom are here to-day, while 
others having ‘‘fought the good fight” have passed on to the shining shore, 
there is awakened a feeling of mingled pleasure and sadness which only 
brethren who have long stood together in a cause that is endeared to them 
by recollections of trials endured and victories achieved can realize. When 
they are gone their memory will be perpetuated in more fitting monu- 
ments than can be raised from moulded bronze or sculptured marble, that 
speak not the language of nature but of art. The trees of the orchards 
they have planted on hillside and valley, decked in the spring with leafy 
verdure and crowned in the autumn with golden fruit, the nobie groves 
adorning and beautifying the grounds of many a mansion and affording 
shelter to choirs of feathered songsters whose music fills the air, the trim 
hedge rows and beautiful borders of garden flowers which at once charm 
the eye with their beauty and delight the senses with their sweet perfumes, 
each in its appropriate sphere will bear testimony to the lofty enthusiasm, 
the sturdy endurance, the unconquerable energy and the broad humanity 
of the men whose love of nature has ever prompted them to more intimate 
communion through the medium of tree, bird and flower. 
On motion a vote of thanks was tendered to Ex-President 
McKinstry for his very interesting paper. 
The secretary then read the following letter from Col. D. A. 
Robertson, of St. Paul, the first president of the Horticultural 
Society. 
