340 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



When you get that precious seed, take care of each one, there is 

 no telHng which is the best one. I tell you that I have hated rats 

 since they stole two dozen of my plum pits last fall ! Stratify your 

 pits and plant them in season with five or six feet between rows and 

 a few inches in the row. When two years old thin your seedlings 

 so as to give more room. This is perhaps the most difficult part of 

 the work, as you should not destroy the best ones. I think it would 

 be well to cut the seedlings close to the ground during spring of the 

 second year. You will then get a strong and quicker growth, and the 

 differences in those seedlings will be brought out better than after 

 a slow growth. Then wait until some time in August before thin- 

 ning, when you have the full grown leaf and the new bud. In thin- 

 ning pull out all that have not made a fairly strong growth, all that 

 have a thin, shaggy leaf; also the ones which have not made a rea- 

 sonably straight growth. On the other hand, preserve those with a 

 thick and full leaf, those with a large bud or which have in a gen- 

 eral way a striking or unusual appearance. 



If then some valuable seedling should be obtained, even if not all 

 that could be desired it would undoubtedly be right to save it and 

 try to perfect it by the same method of breeding. Come it must! 

 We have got to have it. 



A MILD WARNING. 



O. M. LO'RD^ MINNESOTA CITY. 



A distinguished orator said, "We have no means of judging 

 of the future but by the past." To judge Minnesota winters by the 

 last two or three the prospect is delightful, but what has been may 

 be again, and we have seen the mercury frozen, disastrous storms, 

 and plant and animal life perishing with cold. It is a well known 

 fact that Minnesota is not within the most favored belt for the pro- 

 duction of apples, and there are probably not lOO apple trees in the 

 state that are 50 years of age. The records will show that our state 

 society, ever since its organization, has fostered and encouraged the 

 apple interest by persistent effort, and the recent mild winters have 

 stimulated the planting of trees to an unusual degree. So far as this 

 has been done in a small way with proper varieties for home use 

 or on the farms, there is no need of a word of caution. But for large 

 orchards for commercial purposes a careful review of the conditions 

 will not be out of place. 



A study of the general markets will show at once that we have 

 no varieties to correspond with those most popular. For instance, 

 of winter apples, Massachusetts, according to its area, is one of the 



