156 ANNUAL REPORT. 



grows more varieties of apples than any other person in the state 

 not a nurseryman. I think in a favorable season for fruits we 

 could draw on him for over one hundred sorts of apples and almost 

 no end of grapes, cherries and plums. A. W. Latham, of Excelsior, 

 who grew the best grapes of our collection, having a very favorable 

 location, gave his vineyard extra care with special reference to fill- 

 ing out this department of our exhibit. Without these three con- 

 tributors the success our effort achieved would have been impossible. 

 Others did the best they could, and are entitled to full credit and 

 the thanks of the Association. 



I ought also to mention the Rochester fruit growers. Their 

 place is blank in the list. Their extensive orchards were not all in 

 the direct line of the tornado of August 21st, but the flanking gales 

 of it so prematurely harvested and bruised all their apples that 

 after careful search there and elsewhere in the vicinity, in com- 

 pany with Charles Gibb, of Canada, who was in quest of the Rus- 

 sian fruits, [ could not find a single specimen of any variety of 

 apples fit to show. So great had been the destruction and injury 

 to fruits in and around Rochester that I was applied to by the Sec- 

 retary of the Southern Minnesota Fair Association of that city to 

 furnish a collection of apples to supply the deficiency in that sec- 

 tion for their fair, the second week in September ; and on the eve of 

 my departure for Philadelphia I shipped to him, to be turned over 

 to and exhibited by Mr. Sias, something over a barrel of carefully 

 wrapped specimens embracing over fifty varieties of apples, fresh 

 picked and perfect, including a set of entries of my own growing 

 and duplicates of the Philadelphia collection, and directed Mr. Sias 

 that the premiums awarded, if any, be donated to the Association. 



The Rochester fruit growers, in a favorable season, wiL come in 

 with a very large list of varieties, many of them novelties not to 

 be found elsewhere. In all Minnesota collections of fruit got up 

 at present, there will be vacant chairs that must be regretfully 

 noticed, when we do not find the names of Sias and Jordan, 

 and looking down the list also we fail to discover the name of that 

 other veteran of the apple fairs, and winner of premiums on big col- 

 lections, J. S. Harris, of La Crescent. His Bailey Sweets, 

 his Seeknofurthers, his Jonathans, his Northern Spys, you shall 

 not find them in the list, not even their names, though you search 

 for them carefully and with tears. Like Antony, in his oration, I 

 want to pause and weep to think of the Wilder medal coming to 

 Minnesota without an apple in the lot from him. During his 

 searches of apples for the State Fair, his reports to me were 



