4l6 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



THE FUTURE OF THE APPLE IN MINNESOTA. 



W. L. TAYLOR^ HOWARD LAKE. 



This is a subject which not only greatly interests us but is of 

 general interest to the entire state. The apple, which was considered 

 by many as a luxury a few years ago, is now a prime necessity ; it 

 must be in every man's cellar in winter, and forms an important 

 part in the family's bill of fare. The refrigerator car has done much 

 towards furnishing cheap fruit and, incidentally, building up a 

 greater demand for apples, as the man who bought a peck last year 

 must have a bushel this year, and he who used one barrel of apples 

 last winter wants five now. This is as it should be until each per- 

 son has quantum sufificit. But the Minnesota farmer is an enter- 

 prising fellow and wants to raise his own fruit. 



I have in mind one who thirty years ago came to Minnesota and 

 bought a farm ; he was from a fruit country, and he at once gave 

 an order for fifty apple trees to an agent who came along. He 

 didn't stop to think where those trees were grown. The agent was 

 from St. Cloud, Minn., and the farmer thought that was surely far 

 enough north for the trees to be hardy. But the trees happened 

 to be grown in the south, and the next summer more than half of 

 them were dead. When the agent came around again he appeared 

 to be very sorry and offered to replace all dead trees. The farmer 

 thought that this was a fair offer, and so he gave him an additional 

 order for fifty more trees. These proved to be inferior to the first 

 lot, and the result was that no apple was ever grown from any of 

 those trees. Then the farmer, though much discouraged, gave an 

 order for trees from Ohio, thinking that surely if the trees came 

 from an apple state he would- have success with them. But they 

 died one by one, and he never saw an apple from any of them. 



Oh, how dark the future looked for the apple then ! He was so- 

 disheartened that he told the next nursery agent that he couldn't 

 run fast enough to give him an apple tree. It happened, however,, 

 that the farmer read the "Farm, Stock and Home," and it advised 

 him to go to the nearest nursery and select his trees fresh out of the 

 ground. This he finally did. As he did not know the best kind to- 

 plant, he left it to the nurseryman to make the choice of varieties.. 

 He selected two Hibernal, two Duchess, four Wealthy, two Whit- 

 ney, one Red Anis and one Arcade. These the farmer planted with 

 great care and tended with love. That was twenty years ago, and 

 there are eight of those trees still living. One Hibernal has borne 

 ten bushels each year for the last three or four years. 



