380 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETV. 



all gone. I also bought some Duchess, Woodward's Seedling, Stew- 

 art's Sweet, from Amasa Stewart, now of Texas. These trees all 

 died without giving much fruit, not more than two bushels. I 

 was pretty much discouraged about trying to raise apples. 



About this time (1885) I commenced trying strawberries and 

 raspberries ; then pretty soon I joined the horticultural society and 

 began to find out better ways of caring for the plants and trees. 

 I have made a new start in apple trees, but have not spent much 

 money on them and procure scions and graft them on roots of my 

 own raising, also planting promising seed and saving the best 

 plants. 



But now, going back to about the year 1859, father bought a lot 

 of apple and pear trees from, an eastern nursery agent. I remember 

 after setting them out in the spring we older children had to carry 

 water up the hill from the spring to water them. They all started 

 to grow, but I do not remember that one of them lived to bear fruit. 

 About the year 1872 he also bought one hundred apple trees. Of 

 these probably not more than a dozen or so ever bore any fruit ; 

 four of them, Transcendents, are still alive, but nearly dead with 

 blight. Along through the sixties and into the seventies probably 

 one-tenth, and possibly one-quarter, of those living in our town 

 set out fruit trees. Very few of them amounted to anything, but 

 here and there are a few Transcendents and Siberian crabs still 

 holding out in spite of blight. 



Judging from the past, leaving out the last fifteen years, one 

 might be justified in saying "apples would not grow in Minnesota," 

 but I believe we are finding out the reasons of our failures, and I 

 believe we can raise some varieties now that have failed heretofore, 

 by having them on hardy roots. My remembrance of the appearance 

 of the trees when they died would lead me to believe they died in 

 the root first, and then because of that the top had to die. 



Among the fruit tree plantings that have come under my observa- 

 tion is one I wish to speak about. About forty-five years ago an 

 elderly man came to our town and bought a small place on one of 

 the highest points of the river blufif, and made a home where he 

 could end his days near his sons. He set out a number of apple 

 trees, some of them on the side hill in the sand and gravel, with 

 ; very little soil. The tops of these trees nearly all died down to the 

 ground, but most of them sent up sprouts from the roots and have 

 grown like a clump of bushes. Within the last six or eight years 

 a good many of them have commenced bearing, and there are nearly 

 as many different kinds as there are trees. • Several are winter apples 

 and some pretty good ones. Here were trees in ground where an 



