178 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Wealthy, the result will be colored apples. And if there is not 

 too much heredity force coming from the Wealthy through its 

 supposed crab origin, which I doubt, you will get some long-keeping 

 apples. The Patten's Greening is the only one of the three varieties 

 whose origin is positively known on one side, and with great cer- 

 tainty on the other, and it and the Northwestern Greening having 

 in them the parentage of long-keeping apples, we may reasonably 

 expect good results by crossing interchangeably these two varieties. 

 All of these sorts have commercial size, appearance and fair to 

 good quality. Even the Wealthy crossed on the Patten's Greening 

 is likely to produce varieties of great value. The Tolman Sweet 

 and Golden Russet should also be crossed on it to secure desirable 

 apples for southern Minnesota. 



Twelve years ago last spring we began at Charles City the work 

 in connection with the Iowa State Horticultural Society of creating 

 new apples by hand pollination, and whoever has entered into any 

 line of research where the problems to be solved were untried, intri- 

 cate and complex can in some measure appreciate the position that 

 we occupy. We have made mistakes, they were unavoidable, and 

 we have progressed slowly. But we think we are breeding up 

 through the hybrid Siberian Briar Sweet crab and some of our 

 larger and finer sweet apples, a distinct type or family of fine, hardy, 

 sweet fruits. We shall make the third generation of crosses this 

 coming spring. 



It is now twenty-eight years ago since I crossed the Soulard 

 crab, the largest of the Pyrus coronarius, or wild crab, then known, 

 and which Prof. L. H. Bailey considers an accidental cross with 

 some cultivated apple. In that cross I secured the first and most 

 distinct hybrid with the wild crab of our forests, indeed I believe 

 the only one that has ever been produced by artificial means. This 

 hybrid was re-crossed again, and the past year one tree bore an 

 abundant crop of pretty, fine-grained and palatable apples, of the 

 third generation of hybrids with the wild crab. 



Again I have a cross of twenty years' standing between the 

 Duchess and Grimes' Golden, and many successful crosses between 

 the Patten's Greening and Grimes' Golden, and if there were no 

 other apples in existence than these two last mentioned crosses an- 

 other generation of intelligent crossing and selecting would give 

 early apples, keeping apples, commercial apples, delicious apples and 

 hardy trees. 



Finally permit me to urge again : if you would create large fruits 

 and fruits of the highest quality, that you cannot do it through 



