318 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



known at all from Michigan eastward, has not proved 8|)ecially troublesome. 

 Only further west, under greater extremes of heat, cold, and aridity, has the 

 malady j)roved serious aud even fatal. 



A singular, and to some at least an unexpected, circumstance is, that it 

 becomes even more virulent and fatal as we go northward. Practically 

 unknown ill Europe, it in many cases proves fatal to varieties introduced from 

 that country in our interior American climate. 



Apparently akin to the blight so often fatal to the pear, like that insidious 

 malady, it has eo far eluded the discovery of eith>r the cause or cure; 

 although the comparative exemption of the east and the Lake region of the 

 west including the cold but moist region of upper Michigan together with 

 the observed fact its outward manifestation usually occurs during the heat of 

 the day, strongly indicate that both heat and aridity may be essential to its 

 effective existence. It may also be reasonably inferred that a lack of hardi- 

 ness in winter may not infrequently be due to the lack of maturity conse- 

 quent upon loss of foliage from blight in summer. 



HARDIKTESS IN" WINTER. 



Just what peculiarities of composition and structure go to constitute the 

 quality of wood-growth, known as hardiness, seems yet to be an unsolved 

 problem. It is nevertheless quite well understood that in the case of the 

 apple tree, now under consideration, it becomes necessary that the season's 

 growth shall have been thoroughly perfected ; that the maturing processes 

 shall have been completed, and that the whole be done well in advance of 

 winter; in other words, that a hardy tree must be one whose growth is quite 

 sure to be thoroughly ripened well within the proper season. 



Aiming to secure results of this character for his state, as well as for the 

 north generally, Peter M. Gideon, of Excelsior, Minn., some twenty-three 

 years since commenced the process of reproduction and selection, using the 

 Siberian crab as the basis of his operations. The following is extracted from 

 his report to the Minnesota State Horticultural Society in January, 1887, as 

 superintendent of the State Experimental Fruit Farm, which, although per- 

 haps over enthusiastic, yet gives a correct idea of the processes employed : 



It is with pleasure that 1 comply with your request to give my views on Russian and 

 seedling apples. The seedling lias been my liobby for the last sixteen years, and the 

 success attained gives me hope that not far in the future the cold northwest will be one 

 of the leading apple growing districts of North America. 



Twenty-three years ago 1 planted a few cherry-crab seeds, obtained of Albert Emer- 

 son. Bangor, Me., and from those seeds I grew the Wealthy apple; in seven years it 

 fruited, and that fruit convinced me that the true road to success was in crossing the 

 Siberian crab with the common apple, and on that line 1 have operated ever since, with 

 results surpassing my most sanguine expectations. I did not supjwse that in the short 

 space of sixteen years, tlie time since the Wealthy first fruited, that 1 sliould have 

 more than twenty lirst-class apples, as good as the world can proiluce, in succession 

 from the 1st of August to March, and in hardiness of tree surpassing all known varieties 

 of the common large apple. But it is done, and in the doing, the problem is solved as 

 to what to do and how to do it, with the material at hand with which to attain yet 

 greater results. At the outset it was test and try; but now tli.it the problem is solved, 

 it is onward, with great results certain. 



When 1 say we have twenty firist-class apples, that does not include all that are worthy 

 of cultivation by any means. And now, with such results {uul only a few thousand 

 trees fruited at the end of sixteen years, what may we not expect at the end of the 

 next sixteen years with 20,000 or 30,000 choice selected trees from the verj- best of seed 

 wliich are not yet fruited, and the seed of over 100 busliels of choice apples i)lanted this 

 fall, all to fruit in a few years. Then on planting the seed of the best each year, soon 



