46 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



will do better work always, in all places and for all time. Plants 

 are to be produced which will perform their appointed work better, 

 quicker and with the utmost precision. 



"Science sees better grains, nuts, fruits and vegetables, all in 

 new forms, sizes, colors and flavors, with more nutrients and less 

 waste, and with every injurious and poisonous quality eliminated, 

 and with power to resist sun, wind, rain, frost and destructive 

 fungous and insect' pests ; fruits without stones, seeds or spines ; bet- 

 ter fiber, coffee, tea, spices, rubber, oil, paper and timber trees, and 

 sugar, starch, color and perfume plants. Every one of these, and ten 

 thousand more, are within the reach of the most ordinary skill in 

 plant-breeding." 



Mr. J. M. Underwood : We need to go at this matter of 

 planting fruit in a practical way, and it is my thought and wish 

 that this society take it up in some form that will produce definite 

 results. I want something that will correspond to the work done 

 by a number of these stock breeders' associations. I am a 

 member of the Holstein-Friesian association. I think it cost 

 m(e $ioo to become a member. I have gone out of the 

 stock breeding business and am only interested in horticulture. 

 They have a herd book, and I want a herd book of horticulture. I 

 want a book in which we can record the work that is being done by 

 Prof. Hansen, Prof. Green, Prof. Sandsten, Mr. Perkins, Mr. Lyman 

 and a number of others, or of any one who is taking up the work in 

 a practical way, so that we can record the results which may prove 

 a practical guide in our work of horticulture. (Applause. ) 



I want to make a practical application that each one of you can 

 carry home ; I want to call your attention to what Mr. Perkins did. 

 He planted an orchard, a small orchard, you may sa}- that he 

 planted the Malinda apple tree and surrounded it with other apple 

 trees. If I recollect the story correctly, as I heard it told, the 

 Malinda kept all winter (I think Mr. Perkins told me this when 1 

 visited him at his home) and' his wife, when cutting t'hem up, pre- 

 paratory to making apple pies, noticed that the seeds had started to 

 sprout. She called Mr. Perkins' attention to it, and they concluded 

 they would plant some of those seeds. They did so. and from that 

 planting has come a large number of beautiful trees that are bearing 

 beautiful apples, of which this is a specimen (indicating.) It does 

 not look like a Malinda exactly ; it is a great improvement. This is 

 a practical plan of breeding — the breeding of an apple. It might 

 have been done more definitely, so that we might know more ac- 

 curately its parentage in the wav of learning by what other 

 varieties these frees were surrounded. It seems to me thoroughly 

 practical to do our planting in that way. I want all of you, 

 if you have the opportunity to do so, to go home with the determina- 

 tion that next spring you will take some late keeping variety, like 

 the Malinda, and plant it out in an isolated position, or see that 

 the trees which surround it' are of an excellent quality, so that you 

 can have the quality of two good apples, say like the Malinda and fhe 

 Wealthy, \^^^at kind of a cross would it make to have the good 



