Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-09-10
Railroad Erhibit.

AS you enter the railroad building the eye
is at once captlvated by the taste displayed in
the arrangement as well as the number and
excellence of the exhibits. The companies
represented are the st. Paul & Manitoba and
the Northwestern with its Winona & st. Peter
and Dakota Central branches. Of the form
er Maj. A. M. Fridley is the person in charge,
whose taste in arranging as well as preparing
the exhibit, cannot be praised too much.
The company are not preparing museum
simply to attract attention and provoke
criticism, but are simply exhibiting the pro-
ducts of their territory to enable the public
to Judge of the fertility of its soil, and the ex-
tent of its natural resources. They show
about ninety samples of threshed grain of un-
rivalled quality Of excellence and character,
over 100 samples of unthreshed grain and both
native and tame grasses, a selection of vege-
tables, melons and fruits, not over green and
evidently monstrosities, but of good size and
proper maturity, showing not what their
lands but what they have produced. They ex-
hibit samples of corn and amber cane
in the stalk that forever dissipates
the idea that northern Minnesota and the Red
River valley is net corn producing country.
They also show twenty five varieties of native
woods from cottonwood to hickory, some of
the samples being from trees over five feet in
diameter, showing that the company has the
capacity to supply the country they open to
settlement with what the prairie portion
lacks, viz, good timber. The section occu.
pied by this company was the scene of con-
slant interest, as the great sheaves of wheat,
with their long, well filled heads, or the rank
and luxuriant native grasses, which attest the
rich character of its soil became the subject OF
comment by the throng of sight-seers, to
whom the genial major unwearidly expound-
ed the especial advantages offered by the Man
itoba company to actual settlers. AS bona;
fide representation of the products of section
of country now fast becoming famous, the
exhibit of the St. Paul & Manitoba Railroad
company at the twenty-third annual State
fair, is all that the friends of the road could
wish, and impresses strangers most favprably.
CHICAGO NORTHWESTERN.
Under this head are three separate exhibits.
First the Winona & St. Peter exhibit, second
the Dakota Central exhibit, and third the
Lyon County Agricultural society's exhibit,
all from the territory traversed by the North
western railroad in Minnesota and Dakota,
and all under the charge of c. H. Whitney,
who is with the land department of the COM
pany. The Lyon county society have been
exhibitors for a number of years at our State
fairs and always make fine showing
This year - IL is eASCPtioudIiJ uuc
and is regularly entered for competition
in grain and vegetables. One item in that Sc
lection is two watermelons, weighing over
seventy and half pounds, one of them
weighing thirty-four and half pounds.
The Winona 81 st. Peter branch of the
Northwestern, shows over 200 samples of
grain, 1875 of vegetables and over 200 of fruit.
The threshed grain is arranged not only in a
shape to be handled and tested, but also grain
and grass seed, peas, &c, in an octagOn glass
case of number of apartments, which shows
the kernels admirably, and was an object
of very great interest throughout The
samples OF growing grain were of very fine
quality. The sample stalks of corn and am
Der cane were immense. A GLOBE reporter
was invited 10 hang his hat on an cal of corn
OF a sample hill cut close to the
grouna, but after several Intellectual attempts
he gave it up in disgust to some taller man,
who, however, did not turn up during the
fair. The fruit display of over 200 entries
comprised everything which the temperate
zone produces, and it was with difficulty that
the aforesaid GLOBE man could keep his
hands off the luscious, tempting samples.
The exhibit of the Dakota Central was
mainly of sod crops, grain, corn, vegetables,
and native groves. A sample of the soil just
as it was taken from railroad bank near
Huron, D. T., was over four feet in depth of
black loan, with fine porus clay subsoil.
For the admirable arrangement and untiring
assiduity with which it must have been pre-
pared, Mr.. Whitney deserves great credit, and
his company may we'll be proud of its results.