MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



SEEDLING FRUITS, ANNUAL REPORT, 1906. 



WYMAN ELLIOT^ MINNEAPOLIS, CHAIRMAN. 



Now, before I start in with the report of the committee on 

 seedHngs this year I want to preface it with a few remarks. At 

 the close of last winter's meeting I gathered up a lot of seedlings 

 and grafted varieties and put them in roothouse storage conditions 

 and did it for this purpose : for testing them and comparing them 

 with each other as to their keeping qualities. Out of thirty-eight 

 varieties tested at three different times, March 15th, April 13th and 

 May 22nd, — I did not test earlier, as I ought to have done, in 

 February — almost all of them had kept pretty fairly well up to 

 March 15th, but a great many of them from March 15th to April 

 13th went down. Out of all the thirty-eight varieties that were 



Decker's W^inter Seedling. 



tested there were six that were picked out as especially fine, and 

 two of those six are on exhibition at this meeting and have scored 

 the highest in the winter class. While they are not high in color, 

 they have some exceptionally good qualifications as a commercial 

 fruit. There were eighteen of the grafted varieties, so it was a 

 pretty fair test of the keeping qualities. Some of those that kept 

 until May were carried along tmtil the summer meeting and were 

 on exhibition at that time, and many of you saw them at that 



