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124 ANNUAL REPORT. 
plant at the proper time. Many things are valuable in proportion as you pro- 
duce them early, and more especially is this so in Minnesota. 
When nature distributed the fruits and vegetables over the earth, she placed 
those in different localities, best calculated to the needs of the people who dwelt 
there, and on the same principle those vegetables and fruits ripen in the season 
that they are most wholesome and most needed by mankind. We find the crisp 
and tender vegetable most satisfying and healthful in spring and early summer. 
We find the acids in the summer fruit an excellent panacea during the heated 
term of June and July; and the ripened potatoes and kindred vegetables ready 
to furnish the solid food for the cold of winter. To reverse the order and con- 
sume tne ripened vegetables and meats that constitute our winter diet, in the 
summer, would render life a burden, while if we attempted to live on a diet of 
spring lamb and green peas, strawberries and cream, lettuce and cucumbers, 
with the thermometer 40° below zero, we would need a buffalo overcoat at the 
dinner table. Nature then in this arrangement intended that the seed should 
be planted in season. Those vegetables which are most satisfying in early sum- 
mer or spring, such as lettuce, radishes, peas, onions, etc., never do well in this 
latitude, unless planted as soon as the ground is fit to work. In fact they do 
not thrive if planted so late as to be compelled to make their growth during the 
heated term. 
In the time at our disposal, I cannot go farther into the details of farm gar- 
dening. The growth or culture of a single one of the most important ones 
would occupy as much space as we could use at this meeting. We will now 
glance at our fruit garden. 
Whatever of discouragement we of Minnesota may encounter in the growlng 
of apples, pears, plums cad Senet this fact is evident to every careful horti- 
culturist; we can grow as fine currants, raspberries, grapes and strawberries, 
and grow them in as abundant profusion, as anywhere in ourcountry. Even in 
the favored fruit region of Middle Tennessee, the currant will not grow at all, 
while the grape is as subject to mildew as our Transcendent crab is to blight. 
To the credit of that beautiful climate it can be said that the strawberry, that 
universal queen of the small fruits, does as well there as in Minnesota. But to 
return to our garden. We have half an acre of space to deyote to the small 
fruits. One fourth of this can be profitably planted to the Red Dutch currant. 
These will do best planted 6x4 feet. Do not replant the old bushes you dug from 
the vegetable garden, but use the young, thrifty offshoots. Keep the ground 
well cultivated and free from grass and weeds. Mulch heavily with what is 
known as chip manure. This seems to be a special fertilizer for the currant. 
Prune out the old wood as fast as it shows signs of failure, fruiting mainly from 
new wood; and you will be surprised at the increased size and abundance of this 
healthful fruit. The same amount of space that you give the currant may be 
planted to the raspberry. The rows should be six feet apart, but you may plant 
closer in the row, say 2 to 3 feet. For details ot culture, see Horticultural Re- 
ports. 
It is not my purpose here to tell you just how to succeed best with all these 
things, but to induce you to plant and then study the proper care. I would 
plant these sorts, both for the sake of variety in the fruit and to prolong the sea- 
son. These sorts would be the Old Doolittle, Black Cap. the Mammoth Cluster 
and the Turner. Fifty Concordand Delaware grapes may be planted along the 
borders or back next the fence and they will afford all your family can use and 
