ANNUAL WINTER MEETIl^G. ' 81 



horticultural interests. Minnesota is known the world over as a wheat 

 producing state, and the first thought of every one has been to furnish 

 the staff of life, until with the modern appliances of gang plows, twenty- 

 four foot seeders, self-binders at $100 apiece, threshers that feed them- 

 selves, sack the grain and stack the staw, wheat is brought down to the 

 price of corn, and a man who 'has not the appliances for growing it had 

 better let it alone. Coarse grains are cheap and can only be grown at a 

 profit by the most skillful, if we except barley. If Uncle Sam ever goes 

 out of the saloon business, I should say, if we, as individuals, ever ac- 

 quire sense enough to quit it by refusing to hire saloon agents at $500 and 

 $1,000 a piece, barley will not be worth raising. 



There does not seem to be any line of business that offers better induce- 

 ments than the garden and orchard. It is our duty to see that every one, 

 young or old, rich or poor, is supplied with the freshest of vegetables and 

 with the choicest fruits. Although some of us have all we want, and 

 large quantities are put upon the market, the number who can afford 

 them in thei* best condition is comparatively few. It is our duty to show 

 producers how to place their products on the market in the best of con- 

 dition, and the marketmen how to keep them until turned over to the 

 consumer. Of course, fruit and vegetables from one's own garden are the 

 best; but they can be handled so as to have them in the market nearly as 

 fresh and good. Only the best of products should be placed upon the 

 market; the second quality can be used for canning and drying, and 

 the third grade thrown away. Nothing is so disappointing to the con- 

 sumer as to purchase an article that is excellent, good and bad, all in the 

 same basket. In your deliberations I trust you will develop the best way 

 to bring about a reform in this direction. 



BETTER METHODS. 



Each year I am more firmly convinced that we need to adopt better 

 methods and better culture. It is the most difficult thing we have to do 

 along our road, to get out of the ruts. We gaze in wonder at the success 

 of our neighbor, but seem wholly incapable of raising ourselves to his 

 plane of action and adopting his methods; so we plod along in our old 

 antiquated way. When I visit my neighbor and find him raising on a 

 half dozen vines more tomatoes than he can use, and giving of his 

 abundance to his neighbors, and he tells me that he has been having ripe 

 tomatoes for two weeks, while mine are nowhere near ripe, why should I 

 continue to plant a hundred vines in the old way? This fall a friend told 

 me he was going to dig up three-fourths of his grape vines; he did not 

 want so many; he had too much fruit; two or three vines is all he needs, 

 as he gets from three hundred to four hundred pounds to the vine, while 

 most of us get eight. 



It is but a short time that we have been able to grow blackberries suc- 

 cessfully in Minnesota, and only a few people now know how to do it. 

 We have lost trees by the thousand and called it winter killing, but 

 friend Somerville and others are mulching their orchards heavily, there- 

 by retaining the moisture in the ground and proving that it is drought— 

 a lack of moisture that causes the trouble and not the cold weather. 

 Among the jars of fruit that Secretary Latham has put up for the Col- 

 umbian Exposition, are several of peaches grown by different persons 

 6 h 



