STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 825 



when their courage flags and their spirits fall for want of even this 

 •encouragement ; and it is to help some of them over their fits of 

 despondency that I seize upon a text and an opportunity going to 

 show how, after many days, the bread may return upon the waters 

 to sustain and cheer one who has sent it forth. 



"What use in writing? Who reads and who cares?" This is 

 the text. I take it from a postscript of a letter from F. K. Phenix, 

 in reply to one urging him to continue his writings on the pro- 

 duction of new and improved varieties of the apple by careful 

 •attention to seedlings, 



" Who reads and who cares?" Lei us see. Twenty or more 

 years ago, when northwestern farmers were getting their first dis- 

 ■couragements in orcharding, from winter killing and summer 

 blight. Col. D, A. Robertson, of St. Paul, published articles at va- 

 rious times in the Minnesota papers, in which the theory was 

 advanced and argued out that for immediate success in the culture 

 ■of tree fruits it was necessary to get varieties already adapted by 

 long processes, in older countries, to a climate similar to our own; 

 and in 1867 he read an elaborate essay on the subject before the 

 Minnesota Fruit Growers' Association, of which he was president, 

 in which he showed by facts ascertained in the course of his vari- 

 ous studies that in the interior of Russia was to be found the count- 

 erpart of our Minnesota, Dakota and Manitoba climate, in aridity 

 of air, hot summers, cold winters and inconstant snows, and at the 

 same time immense orchards of excellent apples, pears, cherries 

 and plums, at points varying from the latitude of St. Paul to 500 

 and more miles nearer the North Pole. 



This essay, which was entitled "Climatology in its Relation to 

 Fruit Growing," was printed in the St. Paul Pioneer, and portions 

 of it in otht?r papers at the time; and in 1873, when the proceedings 

 of the Fruit Growers' Association were gathered up and incorpo- 

 rated into the first report of the Minnesota State Horticultural So- 

 ciety, it was given a place in that record. It contained about all 

 the wisdom there was then or is now extant in this country on 

 the subject of climatic adaptations in the selection or improvement 

 of races of fruits for the Northwest. It was an accurate and a 

 philosophical dissertation, the result of close observation and deep 

 study; and the ideas therein presented, the facts brought out, and 

 the suggestions made, were the foundation upon which all the 

 American work has been done in bringing out the Russian fruits 

 which are now attracting such widespread attention. I quote two 

 paragraphs to show the scope of the essay : 



