STATE HORTICULTURAL 80CEBTT. 99 



roots of the trees. To prevent mice from destroying the trees I 

 remove every particle of grass and weeds from around the tree so 

 that the snow will lay flat on the ground around the tree. I have 

 never had had one girdled by mice since practicing this. And to 

 keep the rabbits from gnawing the trees, I use a white wash made 

 of three parts of lime and one part sulphur; use water to slack the 

 lime, and skim milk to thin up the white wash. There is one 

 thing more that I wish to mention here which I have thought 

 might have been the cause of my raising apples some years when 

 my neighbors failed to raise any. There is sometimes a rain storm 

 in the winter, and yet be cold enough to freeze the water on the 

 trees until they are completely covered with ice. This, I think, is 

 the most dangerous time for the fruit buds. I have made it a 

 practice at such times to watch close, and the very first time it 

 thawed enough to loosen the ice on the trees, give each one a smart 

 shake, thus ridding it of its icy shroud, so that the buds and limbs 

 would dry off before another cold night should come and freeze it 

 solid on them again. 



The varieties of apples I raised this year were Duchess, Wealthy, 

 Hass, Red Astrachan, Tetofsky, and two seedlings; of Crabs, Tran- 

 scendent, Hyslop, Beecher Sweet, Palmer's Sweet, Hutchinson's 

 Sweet and Early Strawberry. 



In regard to the Wealthy apple about which you inquired, I am 

 not able to form much of an opinion as I have only a few trees old 

 enough to bear. My trees do very well yet, but they show a little 

 sign of blight. I haye 150 growing; shall plant 100 more this 

 spring. I plant them in preference to any with which I am ac- 

 quainted. I send to your winter meeting two specimens of seed- 

 lings of winter fruit, one of my own raising and one that grows on 

 a farm owned by Mr. Wilkey. My seedling tree is ten twelve or 

 years old, but it never bore until this year; the tree is a little 

 dwarfish and the apples are rather under size but very good. It bore 

 sixty apples this fall and not one of them shows any sign of rotting 

 yet. The other is a medium size apple, a good cooking apple and a 

 first rate keeper, and has been an excellent bearer. The tree was 

 planted by Samuel Fanning about twenty-five or twenty-six years 

 ago, as near as I can learn — at least it was planted out in the 

 orchard when I moved to this State; that was in 1860, and it has 

 been abused in every way that it is possible to abuse a tree and 

 still it lives, out on the open prairie alone, all the other trees dead 

 and gone and nothing to keep it company but the cattle and 

 horses that stand under its shade and stamp on its roots, and yet 



