152 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



south and southwest. This high ground trends toward the north- 

 west. 



I can only recommend for planting in central Minnesota the 

 varieties of apples which I have in my orchard now living, and this 

 list must necessarily be very incomplete, as there are so many 

 varieties which I have not that may be as good or better than those 

 I have. This refers particularly to the named varieties, as I believe 

 there are many seedlings not named that are better suited for general 

 cultivation in central Alinnesota than any now named. I have 

 seedling apple trees that gave me apples from the first of August, 

 1900, till the first of August, 1901, without cold storage. Some of 

 these trees are from seed planted in 1871, are ten to twelve inches in 

 diameter and lived through the dry seasons that killed most of the 

 poplars and soft maples in the county. 



I also have Transcendents which do not kill or blight as badly 

 as that variety has the reputation of doing. One of them has hardly 

 shown any blight, so little that one of my neighbors got some scions 

 from it this year, thinking it is blight proof. Let me tell you about 

 these Transcendents. I bought one hundred of them from J. T. 

 Grimes five and six years old. In setting these trees where they now 

 stand I had the holes dug three and a half feet deep and four feet 

 in diameter and put into each hole three bushels of very fine, nearly 

 decayed chips. I then set the trees in the holes two feet deeper than 

 they grew in the nursery. Every tree lived, and the third year after 

 setting they produced one hundred and fifty dollars w'orth of apples. 

 They have produced fruit every year since, this year giving from 

 three to four hundred bushels. I have set other apple trees a foot 

 deeper than they grew in the nursery, and believe it a good plan, as 

 the ground at four to six feet deep is not so much affected by the 

 wet and dry weather as at the surface. 



What I think would make a hardier tree yet is to pjant the seed 

 where the tree is to stand, as the transplanting breaks the tap root 

 and thereby to a great extent prevents the deep rooting so natural 

 and essential to the long life and hardiness of all trees, more especial- 

 ly the apple. Drought never kills deep rooted trees. Consider the 

 oak family. You can find species of it in every latitude, the standard 

 of hardiness, whose tap root is said to extend as far below as its top 

 does above the surface of the earth. Consider the conifers with roots 

 extending sixty to eighty feet below the surface and tops one hun- 

 dred and fifty to two hundred feet above, with layers showing a 

 thousand years' growth. 



Persons who intend setting out apple trees would naturally 

 choose such varieties as would give them fruit in succession during 



