THE MINNESOTA 



HORTICULTURIST. 



VOL. 30. MAY, 1902. No. 5 



THE ORIGINAL PATTEN'S GREENING APPLE TREE. 



[See Frontispiece.] 



Through the courtesy of the originator, Chas. G. Patten, of 

 Charles City, Iowa, we are enabled to present to our readers a half- 

 tone engraving of the original seedling tree of this now widely 

 known and generally planted variety in the northwest. In response 

 to a request for its life history Mr. Patten says briefly : 



"The seed that produced this apple was grown on the farm of 

 Mr. Daniel T. Eastman, nine miles north of Portage, Wis., in the 

 summer of 1869. While visiting in Wisconsin that fall, Mr. P. S. 

 Eastman, his son, gave me two or three of the very finest Duchess 

 apples that I ever saw, and from the seed of these came this apple. 

 After seeing fully developed specimens of this apple, I became 

 curious to learn more of its parentage, and learned from the East- 

 mans that diagonally across from this tree stood a Rhode Island 

 Greening, which I have not the least doubt was the pollenizing 

 parent, for I have seen scores of the Patten's Greening that no one 

 could tell from outward appearances from the Rhode Island Green- 

 ing, and it has the excellent cooking qualities of the latter as well 

 as of the Duchess. 



"The old Patten's Greening, shown in the engraving, was trans- 

 planted to where it now stands in 1874, at five years from the seed. 

 For the first twelve years or more it was badly crowded with other 

 seedlings and the Mary and the Wolf River apple trees, from Mr. 

 Wm. A. Springer, as shown in the engraving. It has not been cul- 

 tivated for ten or fifteen years, and never but little, and has been 

 too much crowded by forest trees, and in earlier years was cut heav- 

 ily for scions. The tree originally had three main branches, but 

 when about three inches in diameter one of the branches was torn 

 off by a stray animal, exposing the heart of the tree, which was 



