19i ANNUAL REPORT. 



The grandest thing for our contemplation on this earth is that 

 old age that having this wisdom enjoys in retirement the sure 

 reward of a clean unselHsh life in harmony with nature, and which 

 approaches the restful dissolution of the body with no anxiety 

 lest some opportunity may pass overlooked of doing good. 



American Horticulturists will not look far nor think long to 

 find, perhaps more than one figure like this, declining on their 

 horizon. 



A vote of thanks was tendered for the "Garden in Literature," 

 after which the society took up the discussion of small fruits, for the 

 remainder of the evening, and in response to a call from R, Porter, 

 Mr. Golden, of Plainview, gave his experience with blackberries. 

 He tried for sixteen years to raise the Lawton, and had a time of 

 it, and got one berry. He then tried the Taylor, and got one crop 

 in five years ; a full crop, that was last year. They are now frozen 

 down to the snow line. He thinks they are dead, but his wife has 

 hopes. 



President Harris. I am having good success with the Snyder 

 and Stone's Hardy. The latter is more easy to protect, the bushes 

 are not so stiff and upright in growth as the Snyder. 0. M. Lord, 

 of Minnesota City has quite a plantation of Stone's Hardy, and pro- 

 tects them by taking a spadeful of earth from one side of the roots, 

 then bending down the canes and covering with earth. They bear 

 well and pay well. Ancient Briton is a large berry, but not so 

 proliffc as some of the others. I think some improvement might be 

 made by selection and cross breeding with the wild blackberries. 



Truman M. Smith. Several gentlemen of St. Paul are cultivat- 

 ing the native trailing blackberry. 



CURRANTS, 



Secretary Gibbs. We have heard for many j'^ears, principally by 

 way of nurserymen's catalogues, of varieties of currants that are 

 larger than our common Red and White Dutch, and said to be pro- 

 ductive and good ; but I have watched the markets for them in 

 vain, till last summer I saw for the first time the proofs of their 

 existence. This was at St. Paul. In the city markets there I saw 

 abundant supplies of very large and handsome red currants on sale, 

 day after day, and I would like to know what they were, who raised 

 them, and all about them. 



