VALUABLE VARIETIES OF THE NATIVE PLUM. 389 
Mr. Wedge: I want to say a word in regard to the De Soto. 
My experience is precisely that of Mr. Penning’s, and I am sur- 
prised to hear that anybody else has had a different experience. It 
is almost uniformly true that as the trees become older they become 
less valuable. My original setting was a row of Forest Garden and 
De Soto. The Forest Garden maintains its size and its ability to 
bear crops, and it bears double the crops the De Soto does now, 
and much finer looking plums. I would not recommend any one 
to plant the Forest Garden, except that it is more reliable in bear- 
ing and is a longer lived tree. 
Mr. Wheaton: My experience with DeSoto is that the old 
trees bear just as well as the younger trees. I have had them some 
ten or twelve years, but I am sure they bore as large plums as the 
younger ones did. Would a tree being on its own roots and grafted 
make any difference in the size of the plum? Mine are not on their 
own roots, 
Mr. Older: Some ten or twelve years ago I bought some 
budded De Soto plum trees. The second year they were as nice 
as anything I wished to see, but in six years they never bore a good 
sized plum. The seventh year they had nice plums. The condi- 
tions surrounding them were the same as that of the other trees. 
For my part I am very partial to plum trees on their own roots. 
0 
VARIETIES OF APPLES BEST ADAPTED TO 
SOUTHWESTERN MINNESOTA. 
C. E. OLDER, LUVERNE. 
In treating this subject I must necessarily dwell on what has been my 
cwn observation and experience, on facts as we have known them to exist, 
and as they do exist in our part of the state today. 
For the past forty years, in Iowa and Minnesota, we and our brother 
fruit growers have been trying to solve the question of the best varieties of 
apples for our locality. The apple tree that is hardy enough to withstand 
its cold and bleak winters, its dry and windy prairies, its numerous hot 
winds and occasional blizzards, fills one requirement for an apple tree for 
our country—an apple that is of good appearance, showy, good to eat, good 
to cook, of fine flavor and texture and, if possible, a good keeper. 
Hardiness I place first in the requirements for an apple tree, as a dead 
apple tree is of little value; it must be hardy to be valuable to us. Next, the 
apple must be of some merit, nice in appearance, fine in flavor, good to eat 
or to cook, and the tree must be a good bearer. (We are still looking for it.) 
' Lastly, a good keeper. Gentlemen, we have not, as yet, this combination in 
our state. 
The part of the state I have the honor to represent today in this body 
is the extreme southwestern portion. Twenty-eight years ago, in 1871, I first 
landed with an ox team in Rock county—one house between Spirit lake and 
Rock river, not a house in Pipestone county, only two in Nobles coun- 
