192 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



We know but little of the ancestry of our fruit trees, and so we 

 have need to be wiser and more thoughtful than the stockgrower. 

 To breed improved fruits for this climate every element of perfection 

 in tree and fruit that it is possible to find should be brought to- 

 gether. Hardiness, freedom from blight, vigor, leaves that are re- 

 sistant to unfavorable combinations of heat and moisture, fruits that 

 hang well to the tree until mature, good size, freedom from defect 

 in skin, beautiful, productive and of as good quality as possible. 

 Such a tree should hold its leaves for a normal length of season for 

 the latitude in which we are working. Judged by these points, the 

 Oldenburg and Hibernal are defective, for they both drop their 

 leaves seven to ten days earlier than they should in the average sea- 

 son, and both also drop their fruit too easily. Our northern native 

 plums are defective in dropping their fruit and shedding their leaves 

 too early, and I have no doubt that these defects will be improved 

 upon by crossing them with the Miner plum and some of its seed- 

 lings. 



Innumerable and serious mistakes have been made all over the 

 northwest in an endeavor to mingle the little Siberian with our cul- 

 tivated apple, forgetting that violent crosses produce untold defects 

 in fruits and plants, as well as in animals. Some of our most noted 

 originators of new plums here in the west are, I fear, making this 

 mistake, getting too far away from line breeding and mixing wide- 

 ly distinct types. What was once one of the most important stock 

 centers of the west for high bred cattle has greatly deteriorated on 

 account of this mixing process. A little Holstein, a little Short 

 Horn, a little Polled Angus, and a little Jersey has wrought the mis- 

 chief. 



The mixing process is a scattering and diluting process nearly 

 every time. In improving the apple for Minnesota and the north- 

 west, we must have hardiness. "Then," says one, "you must go back 

 to the Siberian." Not so, for it has been demonstrated by actual 

 experiment that some of the third hybrids, like Whitney's No. 20 

 and Briar's Sweet, that are at least seventy-five per cent apple, will 

 produce seedlings that are hardy and more free from defects than 

 where the old Siberians were crossed with the apple. So that if we 

 would make an all around advance with the apple, one of the parents 

 should be such advanced hybrids as Sweet Russet, Minnesota and 

 Meader's Winter, and better, if you know them, being sure that they 

 hold both leaves and fruit reasonably well, and first rate, if possible. 

 However, holding a large part of the leaves too late would be an in- 

 dication of immaturity. 



