The original home of the Ford family to which the writer belongs was near the Hudson, in the historic town of Stillwater, near Bemis Heights. Our ancestors came from Ireland before the revolution. Our family was a large one, there being six boys and the same number of girls; of these, four brothers only are now living, all younger than myself.

The date of my birth was January 22d, 1825. I have no record of the exact locality. We resided in various parts of Saratoga county, New York, on farms, until most of us were grown up, when we caught the western fever. In 1848 my sister Mary was married to Hiram Shoemaker, who soon after started for the Fox River country, of Wisconsin. The next season father and I came out to see the west, especially the part the newly married couple had selected for a home. He returned, while I went to see my oldest sister, Caroline, who had come out the year before and settled at Mount Palatine, Ill During the winter I took charge of the academy located at that place. The next summer I came to Minnesota. St. Paul was a very small place when I arrived there in the summer of 1850.

Soon after my arrival I secured a claim of 160 acres nearly midway between St. Paul and St. Anthony, one-half of which I sold later to a friend who came up the river on the same boat. On the same land was in later years located the Minnesota Transfer, where so much freight is handled for the great northwest.

The first winter I taught a class in French and a singing school, which was the first ever organized in that upper country. My pio. neer nursery was started, in 1851, by taking up some little apple trees that came up in the dooryard of the small building standing on the place when bought.

In 1852 I helped to organize a school district between the two cities, where now are located several colleges. It was called the Groveland school, or District No. 10. Not finding a suitable teacher, I took charge of the school myself, the new building being located on a small hill some distance east of the Merriam Park station of later times.

In connection with the nursery business we carried on vegetable and small fruit growing. A man from Ohio sold me 200 large clumps of Turkey rhubarb for $200, and from this I sold more than $400 in leaf stalks and roots in one year. Early Scarlet and Hovey strawberries brought forty cents per quart before others got a start in that line. After we built the pioneer greenhouse a good bouquet maker was secured from Cincinnati, so that people in the two embryo cities who wanted floral luxuries could find them by driving out to Groveland.

Just before the war of 1861-5 burst upon the country, I started the Minnesota Farmer and Gardener, with Col. J. H. Stevens as assistant editor. Things looked so dark ahead that we were compelled to give up its publication after some over a year's trial. Soon after its suspension, Editor J. A. Wheelock, of the Daily Press, kindly offered us space for a department pertaining to agricultural matters, which was conducted by the writer for many years. In the above publications are to be found a mass of information about the farms and farmers of early times.

During the fore part of 1861 my pet scheme was to get Horace Greeley to visit Minnesota and make a speech at the coming fair. Four letters received from the great reformer I have kept since then and prize most highly. The last was very brief and penned just after the sad defeat at Bull Run-in which he declined to leave his post on the Tribune until a brighter day came to our distressed country. Later he came out and spoke at one of Col. King's big Minneapolis fairs.

My marriage to Abbie Guild, in 1855, at her brother's home in Sandusky, Ohio, her coming here with me in 1885 and death from a paralytic stroke more than a year ago, are all told in the January, 1897, number of our magazine. After coming to this delightful land (and regaining my health measurably) I started again in my old business. I often tire of our perpetual summer and tropical surroundings, but I never expect to revisit the scenes of my cherished Minnesota; I expect to end my pilgrimage here and be buried with friends beneath the oaks and evergreens of Oakland.

Mr. Ford is very well known to all the older members of this society. While not a charter member, the association was only in its third year when his name appeared on its rolls. In 1884 he was made an honorary life member, to which place he was justly entitled by his many years of faithful service in its ranks. Prior to his removal to California in 1885 his name appears very frequently in our records, and no member wielded a more facile pen or had a larger experience and observation. to draw from. He was one of three much prized St. Paul members who, at about the same time, removed to the Pacific coast, W. E. Brimhall and Truman M. Smith being the others. Of this trio Mr. Brimhall is dead, while the others are still in active life, and we hope many more years may be granted them.SEC'Y.

Trial Sations, 1898.

MIDSUMMER REPORTS.

CENTRAL TRIAL STATION, ST. ANTHONY PARK.

PROF. S. B. green, supt.

As a whole, this season has been a favorable one for horticultural crops. The winter was not unusually severe, and our standard perennials came through without serious injury, as our abundant crops plainly indicate.

In strawberries, the Bederwood has done exceptionally well and while not of the best color or as firm as desired, yet it is proving itself to be a very desirable sort for the home garden, and as it is a perfect flowering sort it does away with the uncertainties of pistillate varieties. Our three-year-old bed has been plowed up, but we have renewed our two-year-old bed, and it is starting nicely. The following is a detailed report of the varieties of some special interest fruiting here this season:

Bisel.-Pistillate. Does not produce many plants; fruit, medium; a little darker than Crescent; season, long.

Boynton.-Pistillate. This variety has been fruiting for several years and has proved usually very productive. The fruit resembles Crescent very closely. This season it produced more fruit than the Crescent.

Crescent.-Pistillate. Continues to be one of our best yielding

berries.

Equinox.-Bisexual. Good quality, good size, broad, flat conic; season, late; not sufficiently productive.

Ideal.-Bisexual. Poor plant maker; fruit, soft; not desirable for

market.

Oriole.-Pistillate. Fruit large, of dark color and conical in form; not a good plant maker.

Princeton Chief.—A medium late berry; plants, medium to large, vigorous; very productive.

Silver-Strong grower, only moderately productive; fruit large. Saunders.-Bisexual. Medium late; long fruiting season; color, medium dark; quality, fair; productive.

Sparta.-Bisexual. Plants vigorous, not productive.
Staples.-Bisexual. Not productive.

Tennyson.-Bisexual. Not a good plant maker; fruit, conical,

red, large.

Timbrel.-Pistillate. Worthless with us.

Tennessee Prolific.-Bisexual. Not sufficiently productive here. White Novelty.-Has not proved to be valuable here.

Wm. Belt.-Bisexual. Plants, vigorous; fruit, dark red, irregular in form, large; probably not sufficiently productive for market; is rather too soft for shipping purposes.

Raspberries have proved a very good crop and are now nearly harvested. Loudon and Columbian are about on a par as to yield, and both have produced enormous crops of fruit; the former with its bright red color and large fruit is the better market berry, while the latter on account of its purple color is not so popular in the markets, though it is of excellent quality for table use or canning. We like them both very much and think there are no other kinds that come very close to them. The King has not done as well as last season, although it has made a good growth. Royal Church is very productive, but the fruit crumbles too easily to permit of its being of value as a market sort. Thompson's Early produces fruit of large size but not in sufficient quantities to make it very desirable. Miller's Red is not sufficiently productive here for profit. The fruit is bright red, medium firm and of good quality.

In the list of black raspberries we find no better early sort than the Progress and nothing better than Nemaha for general crop, while for home use the Older is the best of all, but is rather too soft for shipping purposes.

Conrath's Early.-This is the largest early black raspberry that we have; quality, good; plants, vigorous and productive.

Kansas.-A very good early black raspberry, but it has not produced as much fruit as Progress for several years.

Smith's Prolific.-Early. Not any better than Progress.
Smith's Giant.-Practically the same as Nemaha.

Several varieties of gooseberries have done well, but our best yields have come from Champion and Downing, both of which produce large fruit that is sweet and of most excellent quality when ripe.

Snyder blackberries are just beginning to ripen, and the outlook is for a good crop of them, and also of Ancient Briton. Early in the season the plants looked weak, and we thought we had allowed more fruit to remain than they could mature, but the fruit has filled out well, and now the outlook is for a good yield. Six Rathburn blackberry plants set out in the spring of 1897 made a fair growth last year, but all died last winter except one plant, which is now not over two feet high.

Juneberries never fail to produce a crop of fruit, and while on account of the great abundance of better kinds of fruit we often fail to gather them, yet the regularity with which they produce makes them desirable, and they, like the mulberry, which always fruits here, furnish a bird food which protects our better fruit. In fact, the birds seem to prefer these rather tasteless fruits.

The fruit buds on most of our cherry trees were again killed last winter, and very few flowers opened, although the trees are thrifty and vigorous. The Lithauer Weischel, an inferior Russian cherry, fruited very well, and a few other kinds have produced a little fruit. Plums will be a rather light crop, and many varieties will be badly spotted.