STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 231 



science that the world is indebted for those wonderful discoveries 

 and inventions, and modern science has made it possible for us 

 to produce and reproduce and change at will the products of the 

 earth. Knight, Herbert, Lindley, Darwin, Gray, Bull and other 

 teachers of our day have given us lessons of wisdom which will 

 enable us to prosecute the noble work. It has often been asserted, 

 and is pretty generally believed, that tender exotics may by 

 degrees become accustomed to colder climates and thus become 

 acclimated. Many plants, it has been asserted, which were not 

 originally so, had become hardy. Now, while many plants have 

 the power of adapting themselves to new conditions, I do not 

 suppose it is possible to make a species of plants hardy that 

 were not originally so. It is a law of nature that the stream 

 cannot rise above the fountain head. I claim that the apple tree 

 was originally hardy enough for this climate, and that the losses 

 that occur here should be attributed to some other cause than 

 the severe cold of our winters. Were they not so, they could not 

 grow and yield fruit in Northern Europe, where the cold is much 

 more intense than here in Minnesota. All plants have cer- 

 tain peculiarities and are capable of certain modifications, 

 and it is in the power of man to control these peculiarities, and, 

 in a manner, to cause production by the selection of those which 

 promise well, and continuing the selection with great care 

 through several generations of seedlings, and by that means, 

 and that only, a variety may be originated with peculiarities 

 suitable to a certain climate. 



The recent explorations of Budd and Gibb in Northern 

 Europe give us strong assurance of final success, because we 

 learn through them that that inhospitable climate does not debar 

 its inhabitants from enjoying an abundance of such fruits as the 

 apple, pear, plum and cherry. Tradition tells us that those 

 fruits were advanced from further south, and that, too, without 

 that aid which modern science has placed at our command. The 

 climate of that country is so much more inclement than ours, 

 that many of our fruit growers believe the question already 

 solved, and that we have only to wait until trees can be grown 

 here from cidns procured there, and they will no longer make 

 an effort to produce what they need by originating Minnesota 

 seedlings. 



Mr. President: If this course is pursued, I fear that we are 

 very far from the end. If our farmers plant their orchards with 

 those Eussian varieties, with the expectation of having good, 



