STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 267 



ORCHARDING IN MINNESOTA. 



By W. J. Abernetht, op Minneapolis. 



Mr. President and Members of the State Horticultural Society : 



If I understand the object of this Society in offering a premium 

 for essays on orcharding, it is that the general planting and culti- 

 vation of orchards throughout the State might be enouraged, and 

 the simplest and best methods of securing a supply of fruit for the 

 family ascertained. Accordingly in this essay, which will be brief, 

 I shall try to point out the most approved plans now known among 

 fruit growers for selecting varieties and a site, setting the trees and 

 their future care. 



fk.t the outset I am confronted with the fact that a general article 

 will not apply to all localities in our State, for on its eastern side, 

 bordering the Mississippi, we have the bluff lands which shut in 

 this great river, with their steep sides, their deep rich valleys and 

 generally clayey soil. Further west we come to timber land, and 

 beyond this the prairie, generally level, though often undulating, 

 while farther to the north and west we strike the dead level of the 

 Red River Valley stretching north and south for 200 miles. In 

 these four difierent classes of soils, with their different phases of 

 surface, the selection of a site would of course be different in each 

 case. 



But there are some general rules which will apply to all, and 

 first let me name the general 



PREPARATION OF THE SOIL. 



Our modern apple tree is the direct product of civilization ; it is 

 no longer the wild, snarled denizen of the forest, but a cultivated, 

 refined scion of advanced life. In its veins, may be, flows the blood 

 of a " Duchess." Its parents may have been " Maltby,'' and on the 

 " Russet" brown cheeks of its progeny, the " Golden" hue of its 

 " Fameuse" origin may appear. Reared not on the streets but in 



