90 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



they got only one or two specimens as some one there told them 

 that I gave them the fruit, which was not true, and conse- 

 quently the fruit from the tree station is poorly represented at 

 this meeting. I brought along a very few and expected to find 

 a good many more here, I have a list of promising varieties, 

 about fifteen or twenty varieties, most of them apples; some of 

 them I can remember and some I cannot. I want to warn you 

 that there are thousands of seedlings in Minnesota that are 

 now very promising, that I think will very likely go out with 

 the next hard winter, but in my estimation my girdling is about 

 equal to a hard winter. Some of those hybrids are good sized 

 apples; they appear to be perfectly hardy. Some of them will 

 make No. 1 crabs, and real good crabs that are hardy will 

 prove profitable, especially where it is a little difficult to grow 

 the standard apple. 



Mr. Yahnke: Will the bark grow out again when you girdle 

 a tree? 



Mr. Dartt: The bark that is girdled will all grow out in two 

 years in a thrifty tree. 



Mr. Benjamin: When would you advise this girdling to be 

 done? 



Mr. Dartt: If you girdle the first of July it will bear the 

 next season if it is a thrifty tree, and the next year it will be 

 partly grown over. If we go into the merits of the case I be- 

 lieve we will have to girdle once in two or three years. The 

 wound all grows over. The tree is not liable to die unless it is 

 a blighter. It brings out all the perfections and imperfections 

 of a tree. It is a test, it is a hardship, and the greater the 

 hardship the better the test will be. If the tree is brought to 

 early maturity it will bring out the value of the tree when it 

 comes into bearing and produces its first heavy crop. Thou- 

 sands of trees will grow until they produce a heavy crop, and 

 then they die, and the method of girdling gives us an oppor- 

 tunity to note the "survival of the fittest." 



The President: I would like to ask Mr. Dartt if some years 

 there is less blight than in others? Has the season anything 

 to do with it ? 



Mr. Dartt: I hardly think it has been an abnormal season. 

 In regard to those seedling trees, I ought to say that I have 

 girdled a good many of what I call untried seedlings. I ex- 

 pect that ninety-nine one-hundredths will prove defective. I 

 do not think there is a quarter of them that will live among the 

 seedlings. 



