STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 229 



package for handling and marketing apples near home, and can be 

 made so that the cost will not exceed fifteen cents per barrel; a 

 box half that size is very convenient for handling crab apples, as 

 most families do not wish to buy more than that amount at a time. 

 For preserving and keeping in cellar or fruit hou.se in winter, I 

 find shelves placed one above the other very handy, putting a 

 board six inches wide around them, so you can ]Q.y apples on six 

 to eight inches deep, and they can be easily assorted. In putting 

 up fruit for market be particular to put in only good specimens ; 

 keep out the imperfect fruit for cider and home use ; have the 

 packages uniform throughout, and you will be much better satis- 

 fied with the results as well as those you deal with. Now in 

 addition to the methods I have given you to prolong the season 

 :£or marketing and utilizing your fruit, we still have the old way of 

 drying about the stove or in the sun. and we have the improved 

 methods by which one person can prepare twenty bushels or over 

 in a day, and driers or evaporators which will prepare it for pack- 

 ing in a short time. As I said before, some think this talk about 

 marketing is useless until a surplus is raised; but the same cry has 

 been heard in other places, where, when they got trees adapted to 

 their locality, they soon had fruit wasting on the ground. Already 

 markets in this State have been glutted with home grown apples 

 in the very neighborhoods where the old, old story, spoken of by 

 Uncle Wilcox last winter, "You can't grow apples here," has oft 

 been repeated. I consider orcharding, especially growing apples 

 in Minnesota, only in its infancy, as since nurserymen have settled 

 on the idea that our best future trees must be grown from native 

 seedlings, they have been diligent in looking out and propagating 

 the best they could find, and I think it not only possible, but very 

 probable, that an apple will soon be found of better keeping qual- 

 ities, and the tree as hardy or hardier, than our Wealthy. Another 

 very important feature in the success of orchards in Minnesota is 

 this: An effort must be made to create an interest in the minds 

 of the rising generation, both boys and girls, in this business; give 

 them trees of their own to set and cultivate, donate a piece of 

 land for the purpose, learn th?m to bud and graft; it is a delightful 

 and healthy occupation, good exercise and a chance to breathe 

 Ood's pure air that cannot be found indoors in any business; this 

 must be done to make orcharding a succtss, and soon as they 

 become interested in the orchard they will manifest a desire to 

 attend fairs and horticultural meetings, and ere long instead of 

 seeing an audience made up largely of men past the meridian of 



