Ten Years in Horticulture. 191 



47, of 1873. You need not wonder that in the spring of 1873, I 

 set a promiscuous lot, mostly crabs, and wonderful poor crabs too. 

 I also set more Fameuse, but went slow on Duchess, as Mr. Wil- 

 cox said in 1871 that they would rot before they were ripe. I 

 bousrht crabs of the same man that President Grimes of the Min- 

 nesota State Society complains of, but I cannot condemu a tree- 

 pedlar as he does, for with all their faults the country owes half 

 the trees we now have to them, and their persisting in selling. 

 My crabs grew well. 



About the time I bought the orchard I first spoke of, Mr. Jew- 

 ell was at our annual meeting in the winter of 1871, and in his 

 remarks said that of all the Minnesota seedlings, the Wealthy 

 was the only one left of any value, and that it was as hardy as 

 the Duchess. I felt the truth of Mr. Tuttle's remark, when he 

 said a man is foolish to raise crabs if he can raise standards. So 

 I began to have a desire to know something of the Wealthy. In 

 the winter of 1875, in answer to a letter of inquiry, Mr. Jewell 

 called and spent the night with me, and at that time I bought of 

 him my first hundred Wealth}' trees, they being two years old, 

 and no marble tablet erected to his memory could bring such 

 recollection of him and his persistent efforts to grow and dissemi- 

 nate hard}'' trees, as the sight of those trees, after they began 

 bearing, which was in 1878. That year in recommending it as 

 worthy of a place in our list of Iron-clads, I said that I considered 

 the Wealthy, as a tree, better than the fruit, but now I take that 

 back, as I consider the fruit us good as the tree, and taken 

 together, it is hard to duplicate for the northwest, or for any other 

 nothern locality. It is highly spoken of in different places where 

 it has been fruited in Canada. I do think to-day, that the inhab- 

 itants of Minnesota, as well as other northern states are under 

 greater obligations to our friend Peter M. Gideon, for originating 

 this valuable variety than to the originator of any other one 

 variety, the statement of the President of the Minnesota State Soci- 

 ety, to the contrary notwithstanding. He says, that " we are under 

 no obligations to Mr. Gideon, as the Wealthy is the gift of Al- 

 mighty God, brought out by the bigotry of Mr. Gideon," which I 

 consider a very thankless and uncalled for expression. I was very 



