Our J^rti/'i 'Prospects in Mhincsota. 309 



Our Frnit Prospects in Minnesota. 



BY PETER M. GIDEON, EXCELSIOR, MIN. 



ED. Western Horticulturist: — Winter is here earlier than usual by fifteen 

 days, having set in October 22, though it is possible this snow may leave before 

 more comes, and let us have some good weather yet. But early as is the Fameuse, fruit 

 trees were better ripened than usual at the set-in of winter, and so of all trees ; never 

 saw the leaves dropped so clean. But notwithstanding the well ripened condition of 

 trees, the most of varieties were more or less injured last winter and not entirely 

 recovered in color of wood, so that should the coming winter be as hard as the past 

 one, the partially tender trees would fare bad, as it would take less now to kill them 

 than it did a year ago to damage them. 



Up to last winter there were many kinds that bid fair to do well, but are on the 

 rejected list to-day, I fear condemned too soon, as another such a winter may no^ 

 occur in the next hundred years ; certain it is, its equal heretofore was unknown ; yet it 

 may be repeated and that immediately, and even frequently in the future, as effect 

 never comes without a cause, and that cause may yet exist and continue a space of 

 time. We know not the end, so that in planting, the most hardy should be selected 

 as the main reliance ; the partially tender set more sparingly, but not rejected 

 entirely. 



Though the past winter was a hard one, yet the blight of the last of May and first 

 of September did us more damage than the winter, and took hardest on those that 

 the winter least affected. The blight took earlier and later than ever before, and 

 scarce any at the usual time of previous attacks of the epidemic, for such I esteem it 

 to be, as much so as the cholera, of which it is only a forerunner, now on its third 

 trip around the world. 



I have no fears that the blight will tarry long with us, nor do I fear for the ulti- 

 mate success of fruit growing here, though the last winter may repeat itself as early 

 and as often as it may ; for we have some varieties so positively hardy that the last 

 winter left them as sound as if no frost had touched them. Especially was this the 

 case with our new stock of seedlings, grown from the seed of the Duchess, Wealthy, 

 and a large crab of our growing, the most hardy and perfect in tree of any apple or 

 crab I have yet seen, its seedlings excepted. Our famous crab tree is surrounded by 

 large good varieties, mostly Blue Pearmains, of which cross many of the seedlings 

 partake in tree and foliage, and no doubt will in fruit, but none yet fruited ; but 

 seedlings from the Duchess, Wealthy, and a few from the Cherry crab that have 

 fruited correspond in fruit to the general appearance of tree-crabs and apples having 

 come from the seeds of each. Of those seedlings we have some 500 set in orchard 

 and some 1,500 yet to set, three-fourths of which prove perfectly hardy, so that our 

 chance for something good as well as hardy is hopeful, to say the least. For with only 

 about thirty yet in bearing from our own growing of seed, the Transcendent and 

 Hislop are left far in the rear in size, brilliancy and flavor, some of them rating as 

 good apples, the crab brilliancy, in a superlative degree, added. The winter and the 

 blight caused us great loss, but in time will come up again better than before • 

 will in a few years be able to exhibit a thousand varieties of our own origin, aside 

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