WHAT APPLES TO PLANT. 469 



particularly called to this matter last fall by noticing- the market 

 reports, and I see that Mr. Yahnke's attention has been called to 

 the same thing. I will read you quotations on apples from the St. 

 Paul dailies of three or four days ago: "King $5, Ben Davis $4.25, 

 to $4.50, Jonathan $6.50 to $7.00. You see there is a difference of 

 $2.50 to $3 between the Ben Davis and the Jonathan. Now I have 

 been thinking about it for a long time, and I have thought about it 

 more strongly lately, that we have been unable to originate large 

 apples. I have been trying to originate apples of the very best 

 quality. For that reason I at one time got a whole barrel of Jon- 

 athan and saved the seed, planted it, and this year I had one tree 

 come into bearing. It produced a medium sized apple, a late keep- 

 er, and it was so hard I did not bring it up here, but it will probably 

 keep till May or June, and I expect it has a good flavor. I saved 

 a lot of seed from Brother Merritt's Duchess, and I saved a lot of 

 seed of Duchess that had been brought way down from the St. 

 Lawrence, and this year the trees from those seeds came into bear- 

 ing, and some of them are red all over, and they have the St. 

 Lawrence flavor which makes it one of the best apples. These are 

 only a few that I planted. I also planted seeds of the Golden Rus- 

 set, and a good many seedlings grown from the Golden Russet 

 fruited this year, trees that were a cross between the Golden Rus- 

 set and the Snow apple. There we have the color, flavor, size and 

 keeping qualities between the Snow and Golden Russet. If you 

 will follow along those lines of producing seedlings you will get 

 varieties that are immensely preferable to large apples like the 

 Northwestern Greening. 



Mr. Yahnke : I would like to say only a few words along that 

 line. I want to say that with the experience I have had in growing 

 and marketing apples I have found that a large apple is desired, 

 quality alone does not count. The market wants a large, showy 

 apple. I grow a good many Wolf River, and I want to tell you that 

 the Wolf River will outsell in its season any and every apple that 

 happens to be on 'the market simply because it is large and showy. 

 The Northwestern Greening is a large apple and has a fair quality, 

 but if it is put on the market a red apple will outsell it any time. 

 The effect of the color on the eye has a gre'at deal to do with making 

 an apple marketable. People will go to the store to buy apples, 

 and no matter what the quality may be, if different varieties of 

 apples are placed side by side they will almost invariably buy a red 

 apple. Even a fruit grower would buy that kind of an apple almost 

 every time. The others may be worth twice as much as the red 

 apple, but the color appeals to the eye and sells the apple every 

 time. I believe Mr. Brand is right so far as producing overgrown 

 apples is concerned, but I think a good size in an apple is what we 

 want. An overgrown apple may not be desirable later in the season, 

 but we want a good, medium sized apple, we want it red in color, 

 and if we can put quality in it we shall have the veiy best fruit we 

 can produce for market purposes. We need not hunt for them 



