STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 155 



few native plums. The plan pursued was to first ascertain where 

 the fruit could be obtained, put the early sorts already mature, into 

 the beat condition to resist decay, leave the later sorts ripening to 

 the last moment on the trees or vines, then go and gather them up 

 and hurry them through to the rendevouz with all possible dis- 

 patch and care. The specimens of apples, numbering from three 

 to four thousand in all, were each wrapped in single papers, and 

 wherever necessary to insure identity, each variety group was re- 

 inclosed in separate paper bags. The grapes and plums were laid 

 in cotton batting, and packed in baskets by themselves. Success 

 in showing fruit in public exhibitions, where you get into the hands 

 of competentjudges, depends ver}' largely upoa condition,which gov- 

 erns the appearance of each sort and the general expression of the 

 whole. This also depends upon judgment as to the proper time to 

 pick each sort and upon the utmost delicacy in handling, and af- 

 terwards close packing for transportation. There are so few grow- 

 ers who realize all this fully, that it is useless to touch a collection 

 sent in, as a rule, by growers. It must be picked, packed and 

 transported by experts. Much that was sent me was entirely off 

 condition before it reaahed Lake City, and of course had to be re- 

 jected. Some fruitless journeys were made. It was not enough to 

 find the variety one was looking for ; if the one in hand was not 

 probably the best sample of its sort to be found, then the search 

 must be continued. This in the off year was laborious and expen- 

 sive. But there were other journeys made to places where there 

 was little expected, that turned out rich in fruits and in points of 

 valuable information, which the society will get the benefit of in 

 one way and another, 



I will stop and say right here that we little know what mines of 

 wealth are to be found in the experiments that have been made in 

 fruit growing in various parts of our state by farmers and others 

 who have heretofore had no visible connection with our society, 

 especially in the production of seedlings and in the importation and 

 trial of foreign sorts. Some of these mines have been or will be 

 opened at this meeting. 



In presenting the following list of contributors and their fruits, 

 it is but an act of simple justice for me to make mention of the two 

 leading growers of the apples and the grower of the Minnetonka 

 grapes. Underwood & Emery, of Lake City, turned me loose in 

 their orchards of perhaps 3,000 bearing trees, and left me to sample 

 up without limit. Charles Ludluff, of Carver, not a nurseryman^ 

 but a plain farmer, did substantially the same. This man probably 



