426 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Elliot : I want to give you a pointer on this raffia. It is a 

 very good thing to use, but I can put you on to something that is 

 just as good. You go to the woods in the month of May when the 

 sap has started and cut down some basswood and stick it into the 

 first pool or mud puddle, letting it remain eight or ten days, and 

 then strip the bark off, and you will have something just as good as 

 raffia. 



Mr. Underwood : I came across a very interesting and, 

 perhaps, a very valuable feature of budding to produce 

 new varieties of fruit in California last winter. A man 

 by the name of Thompson, who has produced there what is 

 known as the "Thompson seedling," has made another valuable im- 

 provement by budding, and if I was correctly informed the Thomp- 

 son seedling was produced in the same way. The navel orange, 

 as you know, had its introduction in a commercial way at Riverside, 

 California, and where it is most widely propagated the growers 

 wanted something that would prolong the season. This Mr. 

 Thompson went at in the same enthusiastic way we seem to do 

 things here in Minnesota, by experimenting, and he found he could 

 get an orange that had all the splendid characteristics of the Wash- 

 ington navel, being free from seeds, of good size, fine flavor and still 

 a later keeping fruit. I cannot tell you the exact process he employed 

 to produce that, but he now has one that he calls the "Navelencia," 

 which is a cross of the Washington navel and the Valencia. The 

 Valencia being a later variety he chose it to accomplish the result 

 he desired. The process he uses is something very unique and 

 something that everybody can try. I can vouch for its success, as I 

 have stated the facts to you, and I cannot see why it cannot be used 

 to produce late varieties of apples as well as oranges. It was ex- 

 plained to me by an enthusiastic and intelligent orange grower, who 

 was a neighbor of Mr. Thompson, whom I did not have the pleasure 

 of meeting. He takes, for example, the bud of the navel orange 

 and one of the Valencia ; he splits them in two and then unites one- 

 half of each bud and inserts the united bud in the limb. The two 

 unite in forming a new bud and a new branch, and from that a new 

 tree and a new fruit. Now, if Mr. Thompson can do that with 

 oranges why may we not do it with apples ? I do not know ; I may 

 be entirely misinformed, or it may not be practicable with the apple, 

 but I thought enough of the idea to set some buds the past summer 

 of the apple in that way, and I am making an experiment. It does 

 not cost anything, and if you can use it in any way to produce a new 

 variety of apple I shall be glad I said something about it. 



The President: Have they grown together? 



Mr. Underwood : I think they have united and the indications 

 are that they have made a perfect union. It remains to be seen 

 whether they will produce a good branch. 



Mr. Brand : Mr. Darwin mentions several instances, and one 

 in particular, where an apple was red and sour and of a peculiar 

 odor on one side, and sweet and yellow on the other side, and trees 

 propagated from that tree retained the same characteristics. He 

 thinks it was produced in the same way, by the union of one-half of 

 two different varieties. 



