STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 159 



less trees yearly of various kinds, and kept all as long as they 

 could be made to live in Minnesota, and out of all that vast amount 

 only three trees remain — one the Wealthy, another a fair apple, 

 the other worthless. Since that time we have planted only of our 

 own growing of seed with results far better than anticipated. For 

 I did not expect to jump from the little crab to a large apple at a 

 single bound, but we did, and also got very small crabs from the 

 seed of large apples. I find that when crabs and large apples are 

 grown in close proximity, the seed of the crab is as liable to pro- 

 duce large apples as is the seed of the large apple so grown, and the 

 seed of the large apple so grown as liable to produce a crab as is the 

 crab seed stself, and each so grown will produce about equal amount 

 of hardy and tender trees. We set in orchard only those most 

 promising, and not more than one in fifty give a first class apple in 

 quality, but the others make good stocks on which to graft good 

 varieties. We have some large apples of best quality from crab 

 seed, but others as large or larger from same lot of seed were en- 

 tirely worthless — mere trash — would begin to rot before ripe. 



The best apple I have yet produced is a seedling from the Weal- 

 thy, in form, size and color almost an exact likeness of the parent 

 apple, but differs in flavor and color of flesh, holds more firmly at 

 picking time, and will keep from six to eight weeks longer. 



Colonel John H. Stevens, having tested its 'qualities, said, in a 

 report in the Farmers^ Union, that it was the best apple introduced 

 since Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, with which judg- 

 ment I concur. But as to its real value to the Northwest, time 

 and trial must tell. It set its second crop very full a year ago last 

 spring (1881), but in June following the blight girdled it, leaving 

 only a small sprout near the ground, and from that I am propa- 

 gating, but it will be some years before the variety is fully tested. 

 And until fully tested, and trees enough on hand to make my pile, 

 will not be sent out. 



As to blight, all varieties blight, and blight in proportion to 

 the sap-flow at the time the atmospheric wave brings the epidemic 

 along, the Russians being no more exempt than other varieties, 

 and not the constitutional vigor to recover from blight injuries 

 that our cross-bred seedlings have. We find some very nice 

 varieties amongst the Russians, but our main hope is in our cross- 

 bred seedlings to get a class of trees to stand all vicisitudes of our 

 climate, and to that end the State orchard was set in motion. 

 What to do, and how to do it, were problems that we successfully 

 solved in our many and varied experiments, showing that the 



