STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 23 



trailed badly on the ground, and this would necessitate mulch- 

 ins to keep fruit off the ground. 



On the following morning we took the train for Madison to 

 visit the experiment station of the Wisconsin University. This 

 city is nearly surrounded by two large lakes several miles in ex- 

 tent, and on the day of our visit was surely cool enough for a 

 summer resort. At the University we met Prof. Goff whom 

 some will remember as having attended our state meeting at 

 Champaign a few years since. In his company we visited the 

 experiment grounds. These are small in extent as yet, and as 

 the orchard set a number of years since for experimenting with 

 the newer sorts has been cut down, there was not much of inter- 

 est to record in this paper. 



In the evening we continued our journey till we reached Bara- 

 boo, some fifty miles to the northward. Mr. A. G. Tuttle's 

 nursery is located here, and Mr. Tuttle is also widely known as 

 an experimenter with the famous Russian apples, from which so 

 much is expected by many. Mr. Tuttle called for us in the early 

 morning and we went out to his place about a mile distant. Here 

 we saw very much to interest us and more than we could well 

 digest in the short space of one day. We wish to say right here 

 that Mr. Tuttle, who has reached an advanced age, is deserving 

 of all credit for the experiments he has undertaken and the sys- 

 tem with which the work has been done. On his place is an 

 orchard originally set with Duchess and Utter' s red apples, of 

 which the former only remains, the Utter having been winter 

 killed some years since. Where this orchard stands the ground 

 is very rich. The Duchess in some instances showed signs of 

 injury, but were laden with fruit. In another orchard were some 

 eighty varieties of Russian apples, many of them in fruit, two 

 trees or more of a kind. We first visited the blackberry plan- 

 tation, the fruit of which they were now busy gathering. He 

 estimated the crop at 10,000 quarts to the acre. It was certainly 

 immense in quantity and excellent in quality. The variety was 

 Ancient Briton, which he regards as far ahead of the Snyder and 

 Stone's Hardy, both of which were growing upon his grounds. 

 His system is to give best of cultivation and cover plants in 

 winter. This latter is done by digging a trench on one side, 

 bending the plant over with a fork, throwing on a few shovels 

 of dirt to hold the plant down and covering with a light litter of 

 some kind. 



Mr. Tuttle has discarded what is known as the common vari- 

 ety of Duchess apples, claiming that other varieties of the 

 Duchess family are superior in many respects. " However, no one 

 will know that they have another variety than the common 

 Duchess, as the fruit in appearance is identical. By the way, 

 there are several members of this family under different names, 

 and if you order any of them you will never know but what you 



