Annual winter meeti:ng. Ill 



Ladies and gentlemen: In behalf of the Minnesota State Horticul- 

 tural Society I extend to our host and hostess and to the city of 

 Minneapolis the hearty thanks of this society for the cordial welcome 

 which we have received* at your hands. I do it because we all feel that 

 you realize the great work this society is engaged in. You realize that 

 the horticultural society is an institution worthy of its name. We are 

 always glad to hold our meetings in the city of Minneapolis. 



Years ago when it was told abroad that fruit could not be grown in 

 Minnesota, that it was only a good place to take up claims and sell them 

 to some greenhorn who would come in, when it was said that you could 

 not raise anything here but potatoes and squashes and turnips, a few of 

 us said that if fruit could not be raised here it was not a place for civi- 

 lized men to inhabit. We came and looked the field over and made up 

 our minds that the great Creator never made such a beautiful country as 

 this to be a land unfit for the habitation of the noblest men upon the face 

 of the earth. We said, we will grow fruit here. 



Twenty-six years ago last October, we held our first meeting in the little 

 city of Rochester. That was at the time of our state fair. These old 

 veterans had been toiling on for ten or fifteen years with varying suc- 

 cess in raising small fruits; there never had been an apple grown 

 here so far as history tells us. A dozen of us came together and talked 

 the matter over, and there was born a little child, not exactly in a manger, 

 but in the wilderness of Minnesota. It was a weak child, and if it had not 

 been very well nursed at times by this noble city of Minneapolis, I do not 

 know but what it would have starved to death. 



A year passed on and we came together again, and there were just twelve 

 of us, as before. Some of the old twelve had backed out, but there were 

 enough recruits so that we had twelve at our second meeting. And, then, at 

 Minneapolis, that noble man, Col. Stevens, and his friend, Wyman Elliot, 

 saw that we were in earnest and that the baby was bound to live, and 

 they gave us something to nurse it with, and gave us substantial encour- 

 agement. 



Well, now we have grown up and feel that we are as a strong man, al- 

 most a giant. Where we only had eighteen varieties twenty years ago on 

 exhibition, to-day we have exhibitions in the state that call out varieties 

 by 1 he hundred. 



We feel grateful to Minneapolis for the many times they showed us 

 great kindness when we were little fellows and the big fellows were liable 

 to crush us out or trample on us. We number now probably four hundred 

 strong, and we are strong in the belief that the day is at hand when 

 Minnesota will be noted not only within her own borders, but all over the 

 United States of America, as being a good apple state, and a state in 

 which all the hardy fruits of the temperate zone will grow to greater per- 

 fection and beauty and finer quality than in any other state in the coun- 

 try. (Applause.) And perhaps even some of our European neighbors 

 will one of these days be calling for some Minnesota apples for their own 

 use. 



We are trying to fulfill other missions besides growing apples. It is a 

 part of our mission to teach people to beautify their homes and surround 

 them with evergreens and deciduous shrubs and trees. 



