HOETKULTIRAL REMINISCENCES. 43 I 



A few apple trees grown from the seed produced rather in- 

 different fruit. One tree that resembled somewhat the R. I. Green- 

 ing, both in tree and fruit, except quality, bore quite fair crops of 

 apples for several years and kept well into the winter, but the quality 

 of the fruit was inferior. 



Human nature in our day is m.uch the same as it was in the ages 

 that preceded us. Those of us who in an early day left the paternal 

 home in the east to cast our lot in the new and undeveloped west 

 did not then find here the delicious fruits that we had enjoyed at the 

 old homestead. Some of us had a feeling somewhat akin to the 

 Israelites on their journey through the Wilderness, when they longed 

 for the flesh pots of Egypt. We longed for the luscious and de- 

 licious fruits that we enjoyed about the hearthstone of the old home. 

 Without a knowledge of the difference in the climatic conditions 

 here from what they are where we were born and raised, it was quite 

 natural that we desired to produce the same varieties that we were 

 acq^uainted with and that were the best and the most profitable there. 



There was perhaps some excuse forty or forty-five years ago for 

 purchasing fruit trees from a nursery at Rochester, New York, or 

 some other eastern nursery. The facts are, we did not know any 

 better and had not received costly lessons from the school of ex- 

 perience. 



Having selected varieties not adapted to our climate, the lessons 

 of experience came and left us sadder if not wiser men. Some trees 

 did not endure the ordinary winters, but when the severe test winters 

 came, as they have come since then, many trees that were not in- 

 jured by our ordinary winters were destroyed by the Boreal blasts. 

 ■ With these experiences of blasted hopes there is little wonder 

 that many thought that apples could not be grown in northern Iowa 

 and Minnesota. The fact that the native crab apple, the wild grape 

 and the native plum flourished luxuriantly in a wild state led some 

 to believe that these varieties might either be improved by cultivation 

 or that cultivated varieties might be foimd that might succeed in 

 this cHmate. 



About this time attention was turned to the cultivation of the 

 Siberian crabs, with more or less success. ^lany of the crab va- 

 rieties endured the severe winters and gave encouraging promise. 

 However it was not long before there were blasted hopes, when the 

 blight made its appearance and destroyed varieties that had been re- 

 garded as most promising. It was then found that some varieties 

 not injured by the severe winters are subject to blight injury during 

 the hottest months of summer. 



