176 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



drought as well as the most severe winters since that one would give 

 promise of its enduring the test. 



Whatever the value of the individual seedling may be, does it 

 not support the argument so frequently advanced by my father, the 

 foundation stone of his faith in the fruit-growing possibiUties of this 

 section, that trees adapted to withstand the peculiarities of our 

 climate and at the same time furnish desirable fruit, can be best ob- 

 tained by the growing of seedlings ? 



Note by Oliver Gibbs : The one deficiency in this paper is a 

 statement of what has been done to propagate these seedlings and get 

 them out for trial elsewhere. As I understand this, a few cions 

 have been furnished to the experimental orchards of Wisconsin, 

 controlled by the State Horticultural Society, and Httle if anything 

 more. 



ORCHARDING ON THE WESTERN PRAIRIE. 



DEWAIN COOK, JEFFERS. 



It has not been a great many years since the prairies of western 

 Minnesota and the Dakotas were considered an undesirable place 

 for the abode of civilized man, the growing of apples for home use 

 was not thought probable, and even in recent years the idea that 

 commercial orcharding would ever be profitable not to be entertained. 

 Long winters, hard blizzards, heavy and almost constant winter 

 winds, scant rainfall and hot winds during the growing season, 

 conditions that those people who lived south and southeast of us 

 knew but little of, gave good grounds for the almost universal opin- 

 ion that we could not grow orchard fruits on the western prairie. 

 But there were a few of us who held different opinions, and we set 

 out a few apple trees, tree men invaded our prairie homes, and others 

 were induced to plant apple trees. 



The greatest difficulty we had to encounter was the lack of correct 

 information upon the subject of orcharding. We were usually given 

 instructions something like this : Set the trees outside the wind- 

 break or at least on the north side of it ; plant on the highest land 

 you have got ; plant on a north slope if possible. Fatal instructions ! 

 Very few trees thus planted ever lived to bear fruit, and of course 

 people were more than ever convinced that the western prairie was 

 no place for orcharding. 



But there were a few exceptions here and there. Little orchards 

 of perhaps a dozen or so trees were planted that are aUve now and 

 have been bearing for many years. These orchards were not planted 

 on some bleak hill top or north slope, but they were planted 



