STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 363 



ORCHAEDING IN DAKOTA. 



BY MRS. LAURA A. ALDERMAN. 



Bead before the Territorial Horticultural Societi/ of Balota. 



Who shall decide when doctors disagree'? Certainly no school 

 of doctors ever disagreed as do our horticultural doctors in this 

 new Northwest. The reason is obvious. The methods that were 

 successful in handling fruit trees in the East proved failures here. 

 The trees themselves were disastrous failures. Then while the 

 many were ready to say "You can't raise apples here," there 

 were a few heroic souls like Gideon, of Minnesota, who said he 

 would raise apples in Minnesota or leave the State; and he would 

 not leave the State. But the old established methods having 

 failed us, we were at sea as to what to do next. This left the 

 field to the theorists, and for a time they held undisputed posses- 

 sion. Now a cold demonstrated fact is not particularly inspiring 

 if we have to adopt it as the result of another's research. But 

 your theorist is always an enthusiast; his theories are his very 

 own — his brain children, as Whittier has it — and he loves 

 them because thej' are his, and his delight is to rush into print 

 and expatiate on them. One cannot pick up a paper without 

 being confronted, usually on the patent side, by some absurd 

 theory or marvel of by-gone ideas and methods that passes for 

 horticultural wisdom. 



In the meantime the silent workers were developing a horti- 

 cultural science for us, and not until their theories had crystal- 

 ized into demonstrated facts did they give them to the world. 

 All honor to Gideon, Sias, Patten, Harris and their co-workers 

 who have pioneered their way to success in horticulture and 

 j)omology in the Northwest, and who saw in their most discour- 

 aging failures the germs of future success. Such men see with 

 their brain as well as with their eyes. 



In telling you, as I now propose, how to successfully raise 

 apples here, I shall reset many of the jewels that have fallen 

 from their lips as we have sat at the feet of these Gamaliels and 

 learned of them, and I trust I may be allowed to say in this con- 

 nection, that by following their teachings we have been singu- 

 larly successful, both in the orchard and nursery, failure being 

 the rare exception. 



