138 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



APPLES. 



J. S. TRIGG, IOWA. 



I hai^pen to come from the land of the five Cs : cows, creamer- 

 ies, cheese, clover and corn, and we also raise apples, and nice apples 

 too. We have gone through a trying experience in northeastern 

 Iowa in our efforts to grow the apple. Every orchard set out would 

 grow for a few years, but finally succumbed, and now every one 

 is doing his best sowing the seed and trying to get an apple that will 

 stand the winter. Yet it is true we credit Minnesota with giving 

 us the best apple we have at the present time. The Wealthy apple, 

 originated by one of your citizens, is proving a great success, and 

 nearly every man who raises the Wealthy apple gets a lot of nice 

 fall apples. In our state we have much promise in the Northwestern 

 Greening, and at the recent meeting of the Northeastern Iowa As- 

 sociation reports from this apple were received from nearly every 

 part of the state, and in nearly every instance the report was favor- 

 able to the Northwestern apple. It has not had a test winter yet. 

 It' keeps with us perfectly packed in a barrel placed in an ordinary 

 cellar until the last of February or the first of March — just with 

 ordinary care such as you give your potatoes. The tree is entirely 

 hardy under the conditions we have had up to this time. 



Mr. R. H. L. Jewett: What do you call a test winter? 



Mr. J. S. Trigg: I don't know just what a test winter is. The 

 conditions under which so many of our trees were destroyed down 

 there in 1885 were peculiar. There was no frost in the ground. We 

 had a quantity of snow and warm weather in February and then a 

 very severe frost after the sap had started. It was not the cold, it 

 was not your trouble that killed the trees, it was too much summer 

 at the wrong time of the year. That is a condition we cannot guard 

 against. The atmospheric phenomena like that may drop down at 

 any time. This apple (indicating the Northwestern Greening) is a 

 greater bearing apple than the Rhode Island Greening, and it is 

 a better apple than the Patten Greening. The Patten Greening 

 stands well with this apple in point of hardiness, but we are liable to 

 have conditions arising that will kill every apple except the Siberian 

 crab, and the progressive orchardist should keep on planting. I 

 place the limit of the life of the average Wealthy tree in our vicinity, 

 while they are thrifty and bear very heavily, I place the limit at about 

 twenty years, and I think the man who wants plenty of Wealthy 

 apples must keep on planting them. I doubt very much whether any 

 man in this audience will ever get a saw log out of a Wealthy apple 

 tree growing in Minnesota. The conditions are not favorable to 

 the continual growing of the apple. At this season of the year we 

 see the trees with as many leaves on them as they had in the sum- 

 mer ; I don't know whether it is going to hurt them or not. I went 

 out into a nursery at Iowa Falls last week where the leaves were 

 hanging on the trees in that way, and I made a particular examina- 



