STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 111 
Mr. Clarke. A few years ago I indulged in a few vines of this 
~y ariety, and I should say that the fruit is companion to the potatoe 
‘ball more nearly than to the Delaware. I donot want to waste too 
much time but think we should take some action on this matter. 
Mr. Harris. I move that it be the sense of this Society that 
this grape is unworthy of either cultivation or trial as a fruit. 
‘The motion was carried—18 for and none against. 
COL. STEVENS’ PAPER. 
Col, Stevens read his paper on the Catalpa in Minnesota, which 
~was ordered on file for publication, and reads as follows: 
The Catalpa Tree in Minnesota. 
While exploring the wilds of the country around Lake Minnetonka, in the 
winter of 1852, in company with John G. Lennon, Esq., of this city, and the 
date Capt. Arther Mills, we encamped for the night on a point of land 
mearly opposite the present residence of Peter M. Gideon. Our camp was 
made in a grove of tall timber, the variety of which was unknown to us. It 
was different from any that we had ever seen. There were some sixty or 
seventy trees—thrifty; large at the buts, and of fine form and beautiful 
-appearance. 
Subsequently a mill was erected on the creek below the lake. The timber 
which supplied the mill was cut on the shores of the lake, and fioated down 
‘to the mill. The mill proprietors, Messrs. Calvin A. Tuttle & Co., were 
informed in relation to this grove or clump of trees, which appeared to me 
‘to be susceptible of making good lumber. Messrs. Tuttle and Simon Ste- 
~vens, two of the owners of the mill, visited the strange grove of timber; 
‘found that it was convenient to the shore; that it was capable of being 
manufactured into lumber, and placed some of their workmen to making it 
into saw logs. Neither Mr. Tuttle or Mr. Stevens. or for that matter no 
-one else knew the name of the timber; neither could they class it with any 
variety they had ever seen. The logs in good time were landed at the mill, 
-and manufactured into lumber. At, or about that time, B. E. Messer, who 
ata later period was elected high sheriff of this county, and who was a 
member of the Uonstitutional Convention that created the fundamental law 
-of this State, and who is now a clerk in the Treasury Department at Wash- 
ington, established a cabinet shop in Minneapolis, and most of this peculiar 
lumber manufactured from the strange timber found on the shores of Minne- 
tonka, feli into his hands, and was made up into household furniture, and 
fortunately one of these articles fell into my hands and remains in my house 
to this day. 
At ameeting of the Board of Regents of the University of Minnesota, 
“held in St. Anthony in the fall of 1853, I presented to the members of the 
Board specimens of this wood. None of the then members could identfy it, 
but the late Maj. A. Van Vhooes, one of the Regents who had lived in Ohio, 
remarked that it resembled in every particular a species of timber which 
~was incident to that State, and was known as the Catalpa, but as that tim- 
