rey 
‘. 
« 
- 
{ 
i 
4 
E 
4 
* FARMERS’ INSTITUTES. oLL 
they could, and from what letters I have received from all over 
the state, wherever we have held an institute, in which they 
wanted to know how they were to take care of their small 
fruits, their forests and all of that kind of things, it has led 
me to believe that there has been more done directly in the 
raising of small fruits and setting out of trees in the last four 
years than has ever been done before in Minnesota. They also 
want warning; the country is full of agents from other states 
selling bogus trees, and these farmers want to be warned not 
to buy trees outside of the state. They ought to know it, and 
the only way to get the information to them is to continue 
telling them the danger they are in, and that if they get trees 
from outside the state, they will be a failure. Our trees 
have to be acclimated to our soil. If we go to the South for 
our trees, where the trees are growing under different condi- 
tion and on different soil, and we plant those trees here, and 
the wood is not thoroughly ripened ready for winter, they will 
be a miserable failure, and we are retarding the cause of 
horticulture by doing so. We ought to do something to stop 
those outside agents from coming into our state and selling 
such trees, and the farmers ought to be notified to that effect. 
They are as thick all over our state now as the frogs were in 
Egypt, and through the farmers’ institutes we can do a great. 
deal to check those frauds. ; 
I find our horticultural society has not taken interest enough 
to give Mr. Gregg the horticultural work that ought to go in 
his book. We have not given horticulture the space we ought 
to give it. For that reason all the papers on horticulture I 
have written for this society, I have given to Mr. Gregg to be 
published in that book. I claim that all interests ought to be 
represented. Iam not here begging for the job, butI do claim 
there should be a representative of the horticultural interest 
in our farmers’ institutes. The farmer is entitled to the 
knowledge and should have it. é: 
M. Pearce: I think more good work all over the state can be 
done through the farmers’ institutes than in any other way in which 
our horticultural society can work; at the same time I advocate 
something entirely different from what has ever been attempted in 
the farmers’ institutes. I speak from experience. You take a building 
that is pretty well filled—two or three hundred persons present— 
and you will find that nearly all of them are directly interested in 
cattle, hogs, horses, wheat and such products, nearly every one of 
them; I may safely say nine out ofevery ten. Asa rule, nine-tenths 
of the farmers attend farmers’ institutes just for the purpose of hear- 
ing something about those subjects, and the moment you speak of 
