316 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
went out on every box. But he was sharp enough not to put 
his name on the crate or box that they went out in. I see that 
he has adopted the same practice with his oranges, and I have 
no doubt but that his oranges will sell higher than the ordi- 
nary orange, solely on account of that one thing. 
[Read at Summer Meeting ] 
SMALL FRUIT INTERESTS. 
C. L. SMITH, MINNEAPOLIS. 
Your worthy president has asked me to say something about small fruit 
at this time. I suppose he expected something new, but I can hardly 
hope or expect to say anything that will be new to this gathering of vet- 
erans. The most any of us can do is to rake up some old truth, dress it 
in the latest style, and call it new, until some cruel critic lifts the veil and 
shows us an old familiar face. Now. please do not imagine that I 
think for a moment that any member of this society or the whole of 
us put together know all that is to be known about even the smallest 
fruit. Weare all learners day by day. We know more than we did last 
year. Some of us also are painfully aware of the fact that there were a 
great many things we did not know even last April. 
If we had known that from the last week in April until June Ist, we 
must do withoutrain, many of us would have done less planting, and more 
mulching, raking and watering. 
Three years of drouth has set us all studying how to conserve moist- 
ure, and now, just as we seem to have solved some of these dry weather 
problems, it begins to rain and we turn to the study of drainage; we 
skip the articles on ‘‘Dust Blanket,” ‘‘Surface Cultivation,” ‘‘Mulching” 
and ‘‘New Agriculture,” for ‘‘Levels,” ‘‘Ditching Machines” and tile ad- 
vertisements. 
Among the lessons of the year there have been some things more clearly 
fixed in my mind than others, and I would like to call the attention of 
this society to a few of these. 
Currants, gooseberries, raspberries and strawberries can be grown any- 
where in our state, and yet comparatively few families have a supply suf- 
ficient for the wants of the family, either in the village garden or on the 
farm. Every family ought to have them, every owner ofa farm or garden 
ought to know how to grow them, but they do not: many are doubtful, 
others negligent and careless, some are going to next year, while many 
say it cannot bedone. Itshould be our mission as a society to preach the 
gospel of small fruit, until we have converted every man, woman and 
child in the state. How can we do it? I had hoped the much talked 
of “Primer of Horticulture” would have been spreading the truth as we 
see it before this, but it does not seem to materialize. 
We need to keep saying some things over and over all the time. They 
are old to us, but new to some one else. Pistillate varieties will not fruit 
t ‘ 
