A Joint Session with its Auxiliaries, the Minnesota State Garden Flower Society, the Minnesota State Bee-Keepers Society and the Minnesota State Florists Society.
A. W. LATHAM, SECY.
There seems to be something almost uncanny in the unbroken sequence of pleasant days that have greeted the annual summer meeting of the Horticultural Society in the last quarter of a century. For days before this meeting it seemed assured that we should this year at least have an unpleasant day for our gathering, and even the day before and night before were most unfavorable. Friday morning, June 23rd, however, opened up bright and beautiful, warm and pleasant, as nature can smile, and continued so throughout the day. The meeting was in accord with these favorable circumstances, and I believe brought out more and better flowers and more, though no better, people, both as exhibitors and in attendance, than any previous similar gathering the association has held.
The exhibition was installed in the new gymnasium at University Farm, a room sufficiently large so that it not only accommodated the exhibition with wide aisle space, but also found plenty of room for the placing of chairs for the afternoon meeting. Tables were arranged around three sides of the hall, which were used for the displays of perennials and roses. The peonies were shown on several tables in the north center of the hall and besides these there were exhibits of some of the choicest of the peonies made upon the floor, so arranged that visitors could walk amongst them and look down upon them and see them at their best. One table was occupied with the strawberry exhibit, which, however, was a small one on account of the lateness of the season, though the Fruit-Breeding Farm showed some forty or fifty plates of No. 3, the new June-bearing berry of such large popularity, and a few everbearers. The number of entries was, I believe, in excess of any previous meeting, amounting altogether to 521. Most of the old exhibitors at our summer meeting were present and some few of the newer ones. The effort which was made this year to secure a completed exhibit at 11:30 proved to be a success, and by the lunch hour the judges had gotten well along with their work and the hall was opened to the public to inspect the display.
At 12:00 o'clock or thereabouts the members and their friends gathered upon the lawn near the station dining hall, where there were plenty of trees and green grass, and partook of the noon repast, for which purpose the station provided coffee and also lemonade, the latter a new feature in our bill of fare.
The regular afternoon meeting was held at 2:00 o'clock in the same hall in which the exhibit was placed. This was largely attended, some two or three hundred taking advantage of the opportunity to listen to those who found place on this extempore program. Our society reporter took some notes of what transpired at the meeting, but they were only partial notes, and what here follows in regard to what took place is only in the nature of extracts.
President Cashman was in the chair as usual and in a few words extended greeting to the society saying, amongst other things:
"This occasion is always looked forward to with a great deal of pleasure. We meet those engaged in similar lines of work, we discuss the problems with which we have to contend, our joys and our sorrows. We come here to meet our friends—and my experience has been that there are no truer or more loyal friends than those found amongst the horticulturists. The true horticulturist is a lover of nature, a lover of the beautiful and all that goes with it. He looks for nothing except the best that can be found in human kind. Such are the men and women that belong to the Horticultural Society."
As representing the University Farm, whose hospitality in a large sense the society was enjoying, Dean Woods gave us a hearty welcome in his happy way, and what follows is typical of the kindly things he said: "We always have pleasant days and pleasant memories because those who study flowers and fruits and the beauties of nature are the ones from whom one can get inspiration to understand and to know what nature means. Any one who can listen to the sounds of nature, any one who can see in flowers the spirit of life struggling upwards has the true spirit of the horticulturist and is always welcome here."
Mr. A. Brackett, of Excelsior, being called upon, had something to say about strawberry culture, and in the course of his remarks showed several plates of different varieties of strawberries. What follows is the substance of his talk on this subject. "We have here what we call the No. 3 strawberry produced at the Experimental Farm. I believe from my experience that it is going to take the place of all of our common June-bearing strawberries. It is a deep rooter, fine large plant and a nice, solid berry, and I have never seen any blight or rust on the plants. I think that it will pay for all the expense that has ever been paid out for the farm, that one berry will pay for it, it will be of that much value to the people of Minnesota. The everbearing strawberry has come to stay, and for private use you do not need to plant any other variety. The everbearing strawberry will ripen its fruit at least a week ahead of almost any other berry we have, and then it will continue bearing until the frost kills it. I had at least twenty bushels of fruit from my plants last year, and I secured from one-quarter acre fifty-three cases and sold them at $4.80 a case. They talk about what they can raise in California, but we can do better here, and I believe if you will stick to these three varieties, the Americus, Superb and Progressive, you will not need to plant any other variety. The Americus has the best flavor but it isn't as large. Of the Superb nearly all of the berries are large, very few small ones, but they haven't got the flavor.