REFORT ON SEEDLINGS, 1899. 151 
canes, blizzards, snow-drifts, rabbits and mice, all of which have opposed 
him in his work, and that some seedlings will endure under adverse condi- 
tions. 
Owatonna Tree Station was visited on August 14th, and three days 
were spent in examining trees and fruit. We found the station under as 
good cultivation and management as usual, and many of the little trees 
Icaded to their fullest capacity with fruit, but the fruit of the greater num- 
ber of them is too small, too early in ripening and not good enough in 
quality to make them popular for commercial orchards. As yet Mr. Dartt, 
the superintendent, has not succeeded in originating the large, handsome, 
long keeping, good quality apple we are so anxiously looking for, but he 
seems to be making progress in that direction, and his tests of varieties al- 
ready originated will prove very helpful to transplanters. Mr. Dartt can 
grow trees and make them bear, but to get the greatest good from his 
work he should have some assistance during the fruiting season to make 
careful and continuous examinations in order to sort out the most prom- 
ising and have them described and named and put on triakat other places. 
In the examinations we noted forty-fotir varieties of seedlings that we 
thought were worthy of further trial, and there may be some others. About 
eighteen of these may be classed as small to medium sized apples, possessing 
considerable merit, either in quality of fruit or apparent hardiness of tree. 
The remainder partake more or less of the nature and appearance of being 
crab hybrids, but some of them are likely to prove valuable to take the 
place of the Transcendent and Hyslop, which are proving to. be great 
blighters. The best apple seedlings noted were Seed F. 2, medium size, 
yellow and red striped, sub-acid; Seed L. A., good tree; Seed A. N., medium 
size, yellow, mild acid, no blight; Seed I. S., small, early, good sub-acid, good 
tree; Seed Z., promising; Seed A. K., medium, good tree, productive. One 
Russian seedling, No. 4, is a good tree and produces an early, very good 
fruit. A number were noted for further observations, hoping that Mr. Dartt 
would furnish us samples of the fruit later. Some injury occurred in the 
station from root-killing last winter. It is here suggested that most excel- 
lent ‘results might be obtained by cross-pollenizing some of these hardy, 
productive, beautiful fruited seedlings with some of the large, long keeping 
varieties of Missouri and Arkansas apples, like the Mammoth Black. Twig, 
Arkansas Black, and Rome Beauty. 
Root Killing of Trees —When we are injured by falling it is not the fall 
that hurts, but it is the sudden stop. So our apples trees are not often killed 
by freezing, but very often by thawing out too suddenly. Small twigs and 
branches are often killed by being frozen dry, as clothes freeze dry on the 
line, and sometimes, I think, by being bent by the wind when hard frozet 
Had the extreme cold of last winter been accompanied by furious winds 
top-killing might have been more general. As it was, little harm was done 
except by root-killing, which only occurred where mulching had been 
neglected and the little snow we had had been blown off. 
Some have suggested hardy roots, but my word for it there is no apple 
or crab root hardy enough to be proof against root-killing without some 
kind of root protection. If we are prepared for the thawing out, we can 
safely say “‘let it freeze.” Be Hess DARD 
Owatonna, Minn. 
