PLEASANT MOUNDS TRIAL STATION, ANNUAL REPORT, I906. 99 



PLEASANT MOUNDS TRIAL STATION, ANNUAL RE- 

 PORT, 1906 



J. S. PARKS, SUPT. 



The peculiar features of the fruit crop this }ear in this section 

 are unusual. Some large orchards, with light crops last year, had not 

 enough for the owner's family use this year, while a few trees on 

 adjoining farms were loaded with choice fruit. Some trees in our 

 orchard loaded last year were loaded this season, and some trees of 

 the same varieties bore no fruit either year. The same peculiar con- 

 dition was found in apples, plums, nuts and other fruits. 



J. S. Parks and His Favorite Apple, the Wolf River. 



Our experiments in top-working apples and plums the last few 

 years have been attended with very good success, unlike our ex- 

 perience of thirty years ago, when we top-worked a few hundred 

 apple trees, mostly Siberian, Transcendents and all the shades of 

 hybrids, wild crabs, etc. — only one alive and thriving, that a Wis- 

 consin seedling on a Duchess eight or ten inches in diameter. I 

 very naturally had no faith in top-working, but coming in contact 



