EXCELSIOR TRIAL STATION, ANNUAL REPORT. 47 



The Anisim, like the Longfield, yielded large crops of fruit. 

 The Anisim is the better selling fruit, because of its fine color. 



Many orchards are planted altogether too close. We be- 

 lieve trees should be over i6xi6 feet apart. Fruit trees must 

 be sprayed to grow the best fruit, and in orchards where the 

 limbs interlock it is very difficult to get around and do this work 

 properly ; also the same difficulty is experienced in' gathering 

 fruit. 



Orchards that were planted sixteen feet in rows running 

 north and south, and the rows about thirty feet apart, are show- 

 ing up well. The trees in the rows north and south protect each 

 other somewhat, and the wide rows make it possible to grow 

 corn, potatoes or other cultivated crops to an advantage. Or- 

 chards planted in this way can be made to yield hay to a profit. 

 Some do not recommend taking hay from an orchard, but we 

 think when hay is worth from $io to $14 per ton it had better be 

 cut and returned to the soil later by hauling short manure and 

 spreading it on the surface. 



The crab apple crop was light the past season. In spring 

 prospects of a bountiful harvest were good, but the unfavorable 

 weather seemed to be more detrimental to the crab than to the 

 large apples. Our crabs set full of fruit in the spring, but later 

 they were all more or less affected by a rust-like disease that 

 caused the fruit to drop. This was not peculiar to any one va- 

 riety but hit all alike. We have the Minnesota, Early Straw- 

 berry, Whitney, Transcendent, Martha, Florence, Gideon's No. 4, 

 and Lyman's Prolific and they were all affected alike. 



Other years the crabs have been far more profitable with us 

 than the large apples. We still believe in crab apples and that the 

 party that plants crabs of a good bearing sort is sure of good 

 returns for his labor. We do not plant the Martha; they are too 

 unproductive. They make a pretty ornamental tree while the 

 bloom lasts, and that is about all. Martha trees fifteen and 

 twenty feet high surrounded by other apple trees, and growing 

 within a few rods of our largest apiary are as unproductive as 

 those remote from bees. Many that have planted this variety 

 will do well to use them as stock and top-work them with other 

 varieties. We grafted a number of Martha last spring and had 

 good success. As the tendency of the Martha is skyward, we 

 grafted the outside spreading limbs, about the size of a lead 

 pencil, making the splice graft. Cions that were kept dormant 

 and put in late did the best ; many that were grafted early were not 



