The National Nurseryman. 
FOR GROWERS AND DEALERS IN NURSERY STOCK. 
Copyright, 1898, by the National Nurseryman Publishing Co. 
Vol. VI. ROCHESTER, N. Y., SEPTEMBER. 1898. No. 8. 
SOUTH DAKOTA FRUIT. 
Problems Confronting the Grover—Brookings Orchardist Details 
Experiences With Nurserymen—Wind, Frost, Rabbits and 
Drought—Success in Spite of Many Obstacles—Ref lec¬ 
tions upon the Methods of Some Nurserymen. 
At a recent meeting of the Minnesota State Horticultural 
Society, W. S. Thornber, Brookings, S. D., discussing “ Prob¬ 
lems Confronting the South Dakota Fruit Grower” said : 
It would be impossible to enumerate in one brief paper all 
the problems thdt are confronting the South Dakota fruit 
grower, so I shall try and confine myself more particularly to 
the prominent ones. Many will verify the fact that South 
Dakota is not a “Garden of Eden ” and, in all probabilities, if 
the prevailing environments continue will never be one. 
Less than fifteen years ago the greater portion of our state 
was a vast, treeless plain, with not so much as a native willow 
to check those fierce and merciless winds which traversed all 
parts of the state. Very few native groves appeared along the 
streams, while the prairies were broad and expansive on either 
side. This was the time, while hundreds of dollars were being 
expended every spring and fall for unsuitable and worthless 
nursery stock, that Dakota needed a horticulture of her own. 
But South Dakota, like all other new states, has had to get her 
experience in tree planting by doing. It was during this period 
of its development that the idea of South Dakota ever raising 
fruit was almost killed. Nor did some of our neighboring 
nurserymen (I hope there are none of them here to-day) help 
matters in the least when they permitted, or in some instances 
sent out, smooth-tongued peddlers to make the farmers believe 
that anything and everything would grow in South Dakota. 
They in this way supplied the farmers with many dollars’ 
worth of tender nursery goods, which would have been very 
dear as presents to most of them. 
We must not blame the nurserymen alone for all the early 
failures, as many are due to the practice of fall planting, 
which was so common in early days. Professor N. E. Hanson 
very fully forbids fall planting when he says, “ Don’t do it, 
for our Dakota winter winds will drive the sap from a fence 
post.” In many parts of our state remnants of orchards of 
early days lift their heads but little above the quack grass and 
weeds among which they have been left to die. 
It is more than probable that the factor most detrimental to 
our early work was the unsubdued condition of the soil planted 
upon. The majority of our farmers came from Minnesota, 
Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois, in which states they had seen 
the soil subdued with less labor and trees and shrubs grown 
with less care. They soon found to their sorrow that it was 
utterly impossible in three years, with ordinary treatment, 
to kill the quack grass which grows so abundantly on our 
breaking. 
Such were the early drawbacks to growing fruit in our state, 
but in spite of these difficulties many successful orchards were 
established. The past few years we have been greatly en¬ 
couraged over the prospect that soon we should be able to 
supply the greater portion of our home demand. By corre¬ 
spondence, reaching nearly every organized county in the 
state, I learned that in all parts of the state a few men are 
meeting with fair success in growing fruit. And every suc¬ 
cessful orchard in the state becomes an object lesson of the 
highest value, encouraging and teaching every passer-by the 
lesson that to some seems hard to learn, the lesson of success¬ 
ful fruit culture. 
Many of our farmers find it exceedingly difficult to get 
trees, even from well established nurseries, that are true to 
name, and hardly ever is this possible from tree agents. As a 
rule, these agents find a nursery overstocked with undesirable 
trees, which they buy at a great reduction in prices, then re¬ 
label and send out for whatever the order calls ; and as most 
of our trees have been bought from roaming agents, is it any 
wonder that so many of them have failed ? Under the pre¬ 
vailing system, it is essential that live nurseries have agents to 
advertise their stock, for not one farmer in one thousand 
would ever go to the nursery at the proper season to procure 
the necessary trees and shrubs to plant a farm. 
We feel and believe that if we were able to control the 
varieties and quality of the supplies that will be planted in the 
state for the next five years, we could do more for the 
fruit growing industry of the state than could be done in any 
other way. But as long as nurserymen will send out any of 
the tender varieties as suitable stock for our planting, we are 
under the influence and at the mercy of these men whose 
interests are not with us. So what we need first of all are 
good, honest, interested and experienced men, who will use 
their influence as to varieties and will send out only those that 
are sure to stand. In this way they can gain the confidence 
as well as the patronage of the true farmer. 
DROUGHT THE SEVEREST TEST. 
We have come to believe that the cold winters are not our 
worst enemies but rather that our high, dry atmosphere, which 
is so abundant in all parts of our state, is the severest test of 
hardiness. From experience we know trees from an atmosphere 
as dry as ours though much warmer will stand much better 
than those from a moist atmosphere even though located in 
colder climates. At different times planters have tried to 
avoid this failing in the trees by starting small nurseries in the 
semi-arid belts, thinking that trees grown there would stand 
the dry atmosphere, but too small a percentage of the grafts 
live through the first winter or on account of the drought ever 
start at all. The main trouble came through the tender roots 
killing out during the winter, but this is partially overcome by 
the use of Siberian stocks or propagation by means of the 
cutting graft. Since we realize that most of our supplies must 
come from moist atmospheres, we must select those varieties 
that will stand the drought. 
