STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 185 



learned that we cannot safely use the same methods as in the East whence we came, 

 and have to he very particular as to the variety and institute adaptable methods 

 with the expectation then of early cremating a goodly number of our costly candi- 

 dates. A well-to-do farmer, resident in that county, who formerly made orchard 

 ing a business in New York, said to me the other day, that he was "utterly discour- 

 aged in trying to grow apple trees, cherry, or even small fruits." Last spring, from 

 the same lot of crab and apple trees, two years old, consisting of the Whitney No. 

 20, the Wealthy and Duchess, I sold different amounts to men whom I personally 

 know are posted in the art of fruit growing. While most of them reported in the 

 fall that their trees had lived, timbered well, and promised safe wintering, others, 

 whose orchard localities appeared every way favorable, reported that, while many 

 of the trees lived, thej'- did not grow, scarcely any timbering out to any appreciable 

 extent Though failure is the rule thus far, we have beautiful exceptions. 



A gentleman by the name of Bowman who lives on the shores of Big Stone Lake, 

 a very candid man, said to me last fall that he had raised seventy-five bushels of 

 apples; that among the varieties he was growing were a number of trees which he 

 had brought from the East; he also said that those trees then in bearing were pro- 

 ducing some of the best apples he had ever seen. He Was a very modest man, but 

 from his report I should judge that he has some valuable fruit. 



In special localities we have some thrifty young orchards, yearly bearing fruit, 

 some of the trees native, from the seed, with fruit equal to the best. Crab-apple trees 

 do finely in our alluvial soils that are well drained and kept friable, wherein is embed- 

 ded and rotting the bones of buffaloes and other wild Snimals, washed in from the 

 plal s above. The exceptions keep our hope alive, that in due time, with unfaltering 

 perseverance, success will crown the enterprise. As respects small fruits, discour- 

 agements obtain, but not so generally as with apples. 



The diverse results of experimentation are by no means circumscribed to our 

 section of the State, but, so far as I can learn, characterize the newly cultivated 

 regions of our prairies west of the big woods, and over the vast domain of Dakota. 

 Our soil is rich, under it is a clay stratum to hold the moisture, and every year's 

 tillage better fits it for high types of plants. Though we are but a few years old, as 

 prairie farmers, we have come to the conclusion that we must vary our crops and 

 give more attention to stock raising and the dairy, as fundamental to feeding our 

 soil with proper pabulum wherewith to develop next the fruitful orchard and 

 garden. 



Obviously there is no uniformity in the constituents of our soils Some localities, 

 doubtless, have an excess of what is vaguely called alkali; others are deficient in 

 this respect. Silica may be wanting here and there, or where abundant, there may 

 not be enough potash to hold it in solution for available appropriation. Though 

 iron properties are not wanting, they may not yet be chemically fitted to feed the 

 roots. Though our soils, in the main, may have all the ingredients deemed essen- 

 tial to fruit growing, yet they may not be progressed enough as primates from the 

 original rocks, nor old enough in fertilization, to warrant general success. In cer- 

 tain chemical relations and proportions, water, carbonic acid, ammonia and inorganic 

 matters are the food of plants; for vigorous thrift and complete maturity these 

 must be supplied to act simultaneously and in progressed constituency. As a man 

 will die, if only a single condition of his existence, air or water, for instance, is 



