154 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



young man near where it originated. This Mr. Briar had the old 

 large Red Siberian and the Bayley Sweet apple, and he planted the 

 seed, and that Briar Sweet was the result. Those of you who see 

 the apple will be apt to notice the general appearance of the leaf of 

 the tree from that cross, and especially when you look at the Briar 

 Sweet apple, and you can readily detect the marked resemblance of 

 the apple with the Bayley cross. Out of eight trees I have from 

 that cross four of them have fruited this year, and every one of those 

 four apples are sweet apples, one of them reseml:»ling the Briar 

 Sweet, but one of them resembling the Talman Sweet in color and 

 flavor and the excellent sweetness it has. Many of them are con- 

 siderably larger than the Briar Sweet. 



Mr. J. S. Harris : Tell us something of the University apple. 



Mr. Patten : The origin of the University apple is a seedling 

 of the Perry Russet, and the seedling was grown on the university 

 farm in Wisconsin, and the seed came up in 1881. It is a remark- 

 ably erect tree. You could travel a long distance, even in forests, to 

 discover anything more erect than that No. 2, or University, apple. 

 It has been a fair bearer and is a good apple of a good and uniform 

 size. I had thought for a long time that it ought to be a valuable 

 apple for a much more northern locality than where I live. Its sea- 

 son is not late, and yet with care I have kept it through January. It 

 is not an apple having a good skin ; it is easily bruised and spoils and 

 rots like any fall or early winter fruit, but with care it will keep quite 

 a length of time. It is something like the Wealthy in that regard. 



Prof. X. E. Hansen: Have you finished about the Briar Sweet, 

 about the, future of the work? What do you expect to do, put more 

 sweet into it or how ? 



Mr. I'alten : It would ])c difficult to put more sweet into the 

 apple than we have. The only thing 1 have that is more sweet is 

 a seedling of the Wealthy that is perfectly hardy and sweet. 



Mr. O. F. Brand : The remarks of the gentleman fron\ Iowa 

 raises the question of the comparative hardiness of our apple trees 

 we are breeding here. He seems to advise us to be very cautious 

 with the Haas and the Plumb Cider. Now the Haas and the Plumb 

 Cider were in bearing here a great many years prior to 1884, and 

 they were old trees then ; in 1882 I picked a barrel of apples from 

 a Plumb Cider. But my Plumb Cider were all killed (I had planted 

 a number of them) in 1884-5. ^t that time the Patten Greening was 

 not known in this state, did not know that the tree had ever been 

 planted, but the Haas came right on of those that were killed down. 

 The Plumb Cider nearly all killed root and branch, the Haas killed 

 to the ground, others killed to the snow line, and I frequently saw 

 trees at the northern edge of fences where there was protection 

 formed by snow drifts in 1884 that soon came into bearing again, 

 (and I judge them to be hardier than the Patten Greening, and I 

 have good reason for thinking the Haas is hardier than the Patten 

 Greening and is more valuable in southern Minnesota than the Patten 

 Greening, because the Patten Greening has had no test in this state 

 yet). Now in Mr. Akin's paper he stated that there was no better 

 way of getting an orchard than by planting seeds, and I am very 



