STATE HOKTICULTUBAL SOCIETY. 295 



on what would be considered an unfavorable location; being on rich bottom land, 

 but a dense grove of cottonwood just north of his vineyard seems to make the loca- 

 tion perfect if success is the criterion. Mr. Terwilliger stated at the meeting of 

 our Horticultural Society that in sending grapes to Fredonia, N. Y., to be named 

 he had repeatedly been told that he grew finer specimens of the same variety than 

 the}^ could produce there. And by the way, Janesville grapes raised by this gen" 

 tlemen took the first premium at Minnesota State fair some four or five years ago ; 

 he this year fruited nineteen different varieties of grapes and has thirty- five sorts 

 growing, has excellent success with Janesville, Worden, several of Rogers, Hybrids, 

 Moore's Early and the Lady; still the ordinary care, or lack of care, which our vines 

 receive will not insure success with grapes of even the Concord type of hardiness 

 and the Janesville promises to be the most valuable grape for Dakota yet produced. 

 I have not yet known of an instance of its being affected by mildew, our drier air 

 preventing this tendency perhaps. 



Cherries are among the uncertainties of our horticultural products. In the river 

 fruit-belt they are a moderate success; outside of this they are not reliable, although 

 on our grounds forty trees of the Early llichmond variety have stood the test of 

 eight years without injury until a belated freeze in Maj' last nearly killed them just 

 as their buds were swelling into active life. 



The plums that are useful to us are of course the best of the wild ones; our De- 

 sota and Forest Garden heading the list. Of the smaller fruits, the currant and 

 gooseberry are an assured success. Of raspberries, the blackcaps are a partial fail- 

 ure without winter protection . Among the red the Turner has perhaps given a 

 better equivalent for money invested than any fruit planted by Dakotians. When 

 once it has taken root, it is as tenacious of life as is the prairie grass itself, and wiU 

 yield some fruit even with absolute neglect, although it then gives hardly a hint of 

 its great possibilities. The Cuthbert has been tried but is not hardy, and needs 

 winter covering. Strawberries find a congenial home on our Dakota prairies, and 

 nowhere can they be found in finer perfection, indeed our responsive soil and hot 

 summers seem to be peculiarly fitted to produce vegetation of almost tropical luxu- 

 riance, and fruits of the finest flavor and superior size. 



Although not coming under the head of fruit culture the Flora of Dakota is 

 worthy of more than a passmg notice, commencing with the "Wind flower" a 

 species of Anemone that comes up in the earliest spring, dotting the prairie with 

 what are in effect tulip-like flowers (the flower so called being really the colored 

 calyx of the flower). We have a succession of most beautiful prairie flowers till 

 frost, many of them quite worthy of cultivation. In our ravines and along streams 

 the Bitter Sweet, American Ivy, Hop and wild Clematis revel in tangled luxuriance. 

 Of cultivated shrubs the half-hardy ones are just tender enough for the Dakota 

 planter to escape success with them, but some of the most beautiful roses, as the 

 Moss, many of the Hybrid Perpetuate and not a few of the ©Ider sorts flourish here, 

 and while the edict of the ice king has gone forth forbidding us the half hardy 

 pets of [the eastern garden, nature offers no insurmountable ol)stacle, and the pos- 

 sibilities are wholly within our grasp of making in Dakota, without noticeable lack 

 of fruit, flowers or vegetable products, the grandest of American homes, which in 

 the best sense are the grandest in the world. 



