APPLE EXPEEIMENTATION AT MINN. UNIVERSITY FARM. 97 



APPLE EXPERIMENTATION AT MINNESOTA UNIVER- 

 SITY FARM. 



PROF, sam'l b. green, HORTTCUI^TURIST. 



The work in apple experimentation at University Farm began 

 in 1886 when Prof. Porter estabUshed a nursery and planted out 

 two small orchards. 



Orchard "A" was planted in 1886, with trees twenty feet apart 

 each way. The varieties of apples set out were : Wealthy, Duchess, 

 Whitney, Beecher Sweet, Orange, Uranda, Tonka, Powers, Early 

 Strawberry, Northwestern Greening. Of plums, RoUingstone, De- 

 soto, Forest Garden, Weaver. 



The Beecher Sweet and Orange crabs blighted to death, after 

 producing heavy crops. Some of the Early Strawberry trees have 

 been lost by blight, but fruited very heavily for ten years. The 

 Wealthy and Duchess have borne heavy crops for many years and 

 are still in good condition. Whitney has fruited fairly well, but it 

 does not fruit well in this location, although the trees grow thriftily. 

 The Northwestern Greening was fourteen years in coming into 

 bearing, and then produced a fair crop. The tree is perfectly hardy 

 and has blighted very little. This is in marked contrast to a dozen 

 trees of this variety planted out in 1888, of which a number of them 

 blighted, and the rest were root-killed. 



All of the plums have borne well and are still in good condition. 

 The tendency with them has been to overbear and set more fruit 

 than they could mature, and this has been overcome by occasional 

 heavy pruning and heavy manuring. This orchard has been more 

 thickly planted in the part where the plums were growing, and 

 there are now perhaps sixty varieties of plums that fruit here in a 

 good season. The space between the rows in this orchard is still 

 largely used for nursery stock and small fruit, but these are being 

 gradually taken out. as the trees will soon require all the space be- 

 tween the rows. 



Orchard "B" is located on the open prairie with little protection 

 for forty rods in any direction. The object in selecting this loca- 

 tion was to determine as soon as possible the hardiness of the Rus- 

 sian trees which were planted in it. Prof. Porter started this or- 

 chard in 1887, setting out 182 trees. In the spring of 1888 this 

 number was increased to 1,300 trees by setting trees between those 

 already planted. About 260 named varieties were set out alto- 

 gether. Of these many were found to be duplicates. The object 

 in planting so close was to economize space, as it was thought that 



