118 ANNUAL REPORT. 
REPORT OF THE OLMSTED COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
The seventh annual meeting of the Olmsted County Horticultural Society was 
held in Good Templars’ hall last Saturday afternoon, March 20, 1880. Owing 
to the bad state of the roads, the attendance was not as large as it should have 
been. 
The meeting was called to order by the president, A. W. Sias, who stated 
that the first thing in order was the payment of membership fees. 
M. W. Cook stated that there was an indebtedness of $10, incurred at the 
time of the meeting of the State Horticultural Society, which had not been paid, 
and he moved that the membership fee be raised to fifty cents. After some dis- 
cussion, the motion was carried. 
The annual election of officers being next in order, the following officers were 
elected, viz: President, M. W. Cook; Vice President, R. Porter; Treasurer, J. 
Bamber; Secretary, S. D. Hillman; Assistant Secretary, G. W. Mason. 
The subject for discussion before the meeting was ‘‘Winter Fruits’’ and Mr. 
Sias was called upon to open the discussion. He said he was much impressed 
with the lecture delivered by Prof. John before the teacher's institute Thursday 
evening, in which he claimed that five years time might be saved in the educa- 
tion of a pupil by taking the most direct course. The great object with fruit 
growers in Minnesota was to obtain hardy winter varieties. Instead of adopt- 
ing the shortest and best method of reaching this result, many were inclined to: 
take the longest and most expensive route. This point was illustrated by a dia- 
gram of straight and curved lines. The shortest road to success with winter 
fruit was by raising Minnesota seedlings; the same point might be arrived at by 
going around by the way of Wisconsin, Iowa, New York or Ohio, or perhaps by 
going still farther around by the way of Russia. Every divergence, however, 
from the straight line increased the expense and lessened the probabilities of 
success. 
Mr. Sanford Niles inquired if he took the position that fruit followed the same 
law as corn and grain, which ripened earlier on bringing it from the north to: 
the south. 
Mr. Sias replied that he did. He quoted from the writings of Downing to 
sustain his position. He thought those countries that depended upon native: 
seedlings were most successful. 
Mr. R. Porter said he had been experimenting more or less for some 24 years, 
and he was convinced that our native seedlings were the best, and that we must 
rely upon our own nurserymen for a supply of the best and hardiest trees. 
Mr. J. Bamber said he had been trying for the past 25 years to raise fruit in 
Minnesota, but he had failed to raise any winter fruit yet, unless it was the Tall- 
man Sweet, which was not worth very much. Our dependence was in Minne- 
sota seedlings. He had a number of trees of the Duchess variety which had the 
appearance of being winter killed. 
J. M. Hall thought the difficulty was owing to the location of his orchard on 
low valley land. High ground was preferable. 
Mr. Sias said nurserymen were often accused of having ‘‘an axe to grind” if 
they recommended varieties of their own planting, but he would submit the 
question whether the people were acting wisely in sending away for trees when 
better and cheaper trees can be found at home within their own county. 
Mr. Cook said it was impossible at first to grow native seedlings successfully, 
