366 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



bear, and placing the value of the tree at $5.00 as a minimum valu- 

 ation, don't you see that you have trebled your investment, and 

 that your $1.50 has increased to the value of $5.00 at the end of 

 the third year ? Besides you have increased the value of your farm, 

 and the income from your orchard is greater in proportion than 

 you can obtain from any other crop. 



The President: I would like to ask Mr. Patten to come up 

 here and tell us in a few words what profit he has derived from his 

 Duchess orchard in the last year or two. 



Mr. C. G. Patten (Iowa) : I cannot tell you exactly what the 

 profit is. I have one orchard of 290 trees which during the last 

 four years has averaged me a little better than $300 an acre. We 

 pay about forty cents for our barrels, and I think the least we ever 

 sold any apples for was $2.30 a barrel. I want to emphasize the 

 point the gentleman made, that if you expect to get any money 

 from your fruit at all you have got to pack it right. By right I 

 mean that, of course, it is all right for a man to put one or two 

 nice layers on top of the barrel, but after that they should be all 

 right straight through. We cannot make any money from any of 

 our orchards unless we cultivate. We have an orchard seeded 

 down to June grass and some clover, something that we plow up 

 once in a while, and in a few of them we keep hogs, but if any of 

 the small orchards are making money it is those that are cultivated 

 and cultivated right up to the best ideas we have. 



About the North Star Appi,E. — In a late issue, Mr. J. B. Brown, 

 of Eureka, makes inquiry about the North Star apple. I will say about thir- 

 teen years ae;o a friend advised me to procure trees of that variety. I wrote to 

 the originator, Mr. Dudley, of Maine. He said he had a tree as hardy and pro- 

 ductive as Duchess and better in quality than the Wealthy, and that it kept 

 six weeks longer than the latter. He called it Dudley's Winter. He had no 

 trees for sale but would sell me ten scions for $1.00. I sent the dollar but 

 foolishly intimated that I did not believe his story, because it was too big. 

 Well, I sent my dollar, but the scions never came. I complained to my friend, 

 and he later on wrote me and gave me the name of a man in Rochester, N. Y., 

 who had the same tree. I sent him $4.00, and he sent me ten trees, five of 

 which I planted at home, and the balance I planted in our trial orchard at 

 Wausau, where they are growing finely, and in both places the apples are large 

 and juicy. This man called it the Dudley's Winter, or North Star — I am 

 satisfied it has been sold under the latter name, for a man who lives near La 

 Crosse showed very fine specimens of it at our fair last fall labelled North 

 Star. I did not think it better than Duchess or Wealthy, so have not propa- 

 gated it, but will say to Mr. Brown if he will cut two or three year old Virginia 

 crab or Hibernal trees off at the ground and graft in the North Star he can 

 raise very fine trees — as mine growing that way are better trees than those 

 grown on their own roots. As Mr. Brown says, it is good in quality, but it is 

 inclined to blight more than the Wealthy or the Duchess with me. 



A. J. PHILIPS, West Salem, Wis. 



