Prof.  C. B. Waldron, of Fargo, N.D., horticulturist at the Fargo Agricultural College for a quarter century, who has rarely missed being with us at any summer gathering, being called upon, among other things said:  “There are a good many things that affiliate people together in groups of one kind or another.  It used to be that if people had the same belief about eternal punishment, etc., that they would group themselves together, but nowadays we find people grouping themselves according to more natural methods.  I think people grouping themselves together for a common love of trees, fruits and flowers makes a more natural bond of affiliation, and when I find a man that knows the names of many of our beautiful flowers I feel drawn to him at once.  I can’t seem to tire of that person’s company, no matter what political party he belongs to.  These things that I speak of seem to be a more natural and harmonious relationship to build our friendship upon than almost anything else.  I know that I always look forward days and weeks ahead to meetings like this, where I can meet with people who love and admire and cherish the things that I find my greatest delight in.”

The superintendent of the Fruit-Breeding Farm, Mr. Chas. Haralson, spoke briefly of the work at the Fruit-Breeding Farm, which he is conducting with such distinguished success.  His statement was altogether too brief when one knows the vast amount of detail work that is being done there in development of new fruits:  “The work at the Fruit-Breeding Farm is carried on just the same as usual.  We are working on strawberries, plums, apples, grapes somewhat and several other fruits like gooseberries and currants.  The best success we have had so far in the new varieties is with strawberries, raspberries and plums.  It takes only a few years to run through a generation of these, and we can get them selected quicker than apples.  The plum crop is very light this year, especially on the hybrid plums, on account of winter-killing, that is, the buds killed during the winter.  They never did that before, but this year they have done it to a great extent.  The strawberry crop is very good and so are the raspberries now coming on.  Probably as many as 2,000 apple seedling trees are bearing this year, so we will have a little chance for selection in the line of apples.  In grapes we are working with most of the seedlings from the Beta and some hybrids, and we have a few of the Beta seedlings that are very good.  One red variety compares favorably with any of the cultivated varieties.  It is perfectly hardy so far.  And we have two or three varieties of black nearly as large as Moore’s Early or Concord.

“We also have a number of seedlings of pears, but we are not very far advanced with them yet.  Pears stand the winter fairly well, although they winter-kill to a certain extent.  When they are weakened through the winter and growth starts in the spring they blight.  Blight is the worst part of our work with pears.”