466 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Mr. Secor (Iowa); Would your water be as good as lake 
water? 
Mr. Jewett: It is simply the water from the lake. We dug a 
well near the shore, and the water seeps through. I do not think 
cold water makes any difference. I will be better prepared another 
year to talk about the success of irrigation, 
Mr, Smith (Wis.): We have for a number of years used water 
from an artesian well nine hundred feet deep, while my brothers 
used water pumped from a lake, and I have been unable to see that 
the warm water they pumped out of the lake was better than the 
cold water we got out of the bowels of the earth. The water we 
get stands at a temperature of from 52 to 55 degrees, and it answers. 
the purpose in every. respect. 
Mr. Jewett: I think it was in the American Gardener I saw 
an article describing a test that was made in a scientific way in a 
greenhouse of cold and hot water, and the result was satisfactory 
either way. 
HOW TO PRODUCE THAT $1,000 PREMIUM APPLE. 
PROF. N. E. HANSEN, BROOKINGS, S. D. 
The recent offer of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society of a pre- 
mium of one thousand dollars to any one who can produce a variety of apple 
equal to Duchess in hardiness, the Wealthy in size, appearance and quality, 
and the Malinda in keeping capacity, has no doubt stimulated effort in the 
line of raising seedlings and of bringing to light old seedling trees now 
perhaps growing in some out-of-the-way place, neglected and in heavy sod, 
If any: one knew positively just how to produce such an apple, it is very 
likely that he would noi give the secret to the world until his seedling apple 
had secured the prize. But as it is so delightfully uncertain a subject, and 
no one knows just how to produce the variety desired, it will perhaps be of 
interest to discuss some of the various methods that will be worth trying. 
The writer has several hundred candidates for the honor, now one and two 
years old (the winter of 1898-99 wiped out nearly two hundred more), but 
in my opinion some of the older members of the society will be in the field 
long before with some of their older seedlings. 
In my opinion, the winter referred to settled one point, and that is that 
the roots of young trees of no variety of the cultivated apple now known 
will stand forty degrees below zero with the ground dry and bare of snow. 
I learned that even seedlings of the Hibernal, which is probably the hardiest 
known type of the cultivated apple, and seedlings of Antonovka, Anisim, 
Duchess and other hardy varieties, are not proof against root-killing, at least 
when they are only two years old. It is too severe a test for seedlings of 
the cultivated apple. Since that time, although I have by no means lost any 
enthusiasm in this work, young seedlings have been carefully mulched. The 
tops must be hardy enough to stand any winter. If not, the brush pile is not 
far away. I am inclined to the opifion that apple seedlings should be pro- 
tected for a considerable number of years, if indeed it will ever be safe to dis— 
