MINNESOTA APPLE SEEDLINGS OF VALUE. 165 



nesota he had better do it with a great deal of care, aud not recom- 

 mend it until sure it will endure. I am not so sure that the Winesap 

 will not endure. I believe that is a winter apple that has been over- 

 looked in northern Iowa for this top-working. In our search for 

 new varieties we have undoubtedly overlooked some of the most 

 valuable things we have. I have often thought we have almost 

 forgotten that old Fameuse, or Snow, apple, that is so popular in 

 southeastern Minnesota — and we have others equally as valuable. 



Mr. C. L. Smith: In traveling over the southeastern part of Min- 

 nesota it is not uncommon at all to find the Fameuse in bearing, 

 trees that were planted twenty-five to thirty-five years ago, and they 

 are still alive and bearing well. We still find some in Fillmore, 

 Houston, Olmsted, and, sometimes, in Mower county, and in Fari- 

 bault county there are some that have been planted thirty j^ears. 



Mr. Hartwell, (111.): I am a baby in this line of work, having had 

 little or no experience. In regard to this matter of grafting a tree 

 on its own roots, I saw a statement printed that it was best to use a 

 long cion. I would like to know how many are practicing that in 

 this state, and what is thought of it. 



Mr. Ditus Day: I would like to say about the Fameuse, that I 

 have a number of trees that are bearing today, some of them very 

 heavily, and those trees were planted in the seventies somewhere. 

 I do rot know whether you would call them old trees or not. j^ They 

 killed down to the ground and came up from the sprouts. They 

 were killed in 1885, and all the trees I have are sprouts. 



Mr. Harris : I do not know of any trees of the Fameuse in our 

 section but what have come up since the year 1885.. While the 

 Famevtse was injured once before during the fifty years I have been 

 in the west, it demonstrated its ability to recover from severe 

 injuries. The crop of the Fameuse in 1884 was very large. I sent 

 apples all over the state, eoraie of the finest Fameuse I ever saw, and 

 I could have sold any quantity of trees. 



The question our brother from Illinois raised I will only answer 

 for myself individually. I use a little longer root than a great 

 many do and a short cion. When cions are a little scarce one bud 

 is enough for me. I believe I can get as well rooted a tree as any 

 man that ever raised a tree. I believe I can give him as good a tree 

 with a short cion and a medium long root as he can get anywhere. 

 I will tell you why I practice that. There are a great many varieties 

 of apples on which the roots only come out of the body, and which 

 are not good, strong, substantial growing roots. You take a body 

 like that, and it will be a good many years before the tree can stand 

 alone or walk without a cane. There are a good many that will not 

 make a good union about the graft, while the Transcendent and 

 others will do it. Most of the large nurserymen practice the reverse 

 of what I do. 



Mr. Hartwell : A man told me he lost a large share of his nursery 

 stock one winter, and the trees he found alive had a decayed root at 

 the bottom and a live root above. If that is universally true, there 

 is no question about this matter. All the surviving trees had a dead 

 root at the bottom, while the roots on the cion were alive. 



