AlfNUAL REPORT 99 



find the best trees for seed is in the fall, when the trees are in full bearing. Of anything extra choi-e, taiie 

 cions also for the grafting and nursery test, also fruit for the celler test. For such work in the hurry- 

 ing fall season, nurserymen have little or no time. Who then wiil promptly, adequately explore the 

 vast extent of northern orchards, extending over both hemispheres? In the absence of national and 

 State appropriations, we must rely the more on editors friendly to horticulture, on earnest individual 

 help, on everybody that loves good apples and on everybody interested in the west. 



There are those in our country who have acquired wealth in the true business spirit. May we not 

 most respectfully lay this case before them also.' Coifid they not most patriotically devote a few of 

 their multiplied thousands to the*xploratiou of these northern orchard mines? What a blessing to the 

 country at large, what a special boon to the great west, what an honor to the profession would such 

 an investment be! Why not as useful, a* worthy as the vast public and private appropriations for 

 Arctic exploration? Why not as worthy of national government attention as the costly and usually 

 wliitewashing investigations of public steals and scandals? Millions for the farce of locking the stable 

 door after the liorse is stolen — or rather to attract public attention to old steals, the better to cover 

 new ones in progress, but scarcely a cent lor the prevention of crime through the encouragement of 

 honest farm and fruit improvement. Things will be difterent whenever the people wish it! 



Reader, you who have lived on the northern limit of apple orchards, think back and see if you have 

 not known of some tough, hardy trees that have stood up, grown and borne apples, while other trees 

 all about them gave up and died. Perhaps in Canada, northern Maine, northern Vermont or New 

 Hampshire, in father's or uncle's, in Deacon or Neighbor So-and-So's orchard, you know several such 

 trees. Some bore early, others fall apples ; while one or two bore such small, hard, late winter apples 

 they went to tne elder mill, and the seed was thrown out in the pomace. The long-keeping apple seed 

 is the kind we want, remembering that common winter apples from there, prove here, in our longer, 

 hotter falls, only fall or ear[y winter fruit But by chance, somewhere in the neighborhood, there 

 might have been a hardy seedling that bore smooth, fair, brilliant red long-keeping apples, "real nice 

 tasted," or pretty sour — yet because of its small size the fruit went to the cider mill with the rest. 

 Seed of that will be the gilt-edged seed for us. Possibly you might have known a local ironclad graft 

 or a seedling that bore large, fine, red, long keepers, "just as good as any grafted fruit," and stored in 

 the cellar with the grafts for late winter and spring. Of such a tree we want not only seeds but cions' 

 with specimens of the fruit to test in comparison with our standard grafted apples of the same season. 

 Anybody knowing of a choice ironclad, long-keeping apple should lose no time getting it into good 

 hands for immediate propagation if before good judges it proves or promises to prove, worthy. We 

 must be both prompt and careful. We will take some risks to hasten promising winter ironclad apple 

 tree propagation by grafting and budding, in the meantime urging forward in ditlerent States or sections 

 full and final tests and until then recommending varieties as promising only so far as known. In such 

 a crisis the rioodgates of ignorance and deception will be opened to a floodtide of new trash, worthless 

 in both tree and fruit. Whoso will may be swindled thereby and whoso will may go unscathed. 



If it seems good to you, as soon as possible after reading this, write back to father or uncle, auut or 

 cousin, friend or neighbor to please be sure and save you some of those ironclad long keepers the very- 

 next crop the trees bear. To write will cost you a three-cent stamp and will do yourself and your 

 friends many times three cents worth of good. Here we beg to digress to say that the neglect of many 

 well-educated people to keep up their writing (reading and thinking) is one of the most discouraging 

 signs of the times. For those who cannot read and write there is an excuse, but for the many who can 

 write but will not, what excuse can be oft'ered? Why not at once, O most noble Americans, put up the 

 broken down wires and henceforth keep up the communications? 



Those friends will save you, say half a pint of clean apple seeds, which, in a strong envelope at one- 

 cent per ounce postage, will cost you six cents more, making the total cash outlay for, say a thousand > 

 good apple seeds to start your farm nursery with, nine cents! A thousand good apple seeds should give 

 you two or three hundred seedlings. If I could get Duchess of Oldenberg, or Siberian crab seed, or any 

 other sort that promised to be ironclad, I should sow it. To get a start this spring, I would, if possible, 

 buy northern grown ironclad winter apples, save and sow the seed just to make a beginning. Of graftel 

 fruit, .-io far as I know. Golden Russett is the most hardy and common ia market, but it is not ironclad. 



Apple seed, before doing up to send ott', should be carefull.T dried oil' to prevent mold and decay. Dry 

 apple seed soak thoroughly two or three days, place in a vermin-proof box in layers with sand, and set 

 on the north side of a building, where it will freeze and keep frozen till spring. 



Manaoemknt.— "But this horrid climate, such extremes of heat and cold:" True, but the climate 

 is of your own seeking, and all I ask, now tha*; yon are there on the ground, is whether you will try to 



