246 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



apple is hardier in the first place, and in the second place it is a more 

 beautiful apple, and it is a better flavored apple, and it will keep a 

 month longer. That has been my experience, and I believe when I 

 get them on the market they will be more valuable and that there 

 will be more money in them, as the tree is hardier and better. That 

 is what I have to say about the commercial orchard, and I com- 

 menced to grow Wealthy some time ago. I cannot give you the 

 date of the first I set out, but I set out seventy-five as early as 1879 

 of the Wealthy, and my experience is that if I were going to set out 

 an orchard I would sooner pay three times the price of three hundred 

 Wealthy for one hundred of the Peerless if I were to use them in a 

 commercial orchard. 



Mr. Trigg: I have no desire to dictate as to what you must 

 plant, but I simply mentioned the Wealthy because it has estab- 

 lished itself in the market, its price is fixed, and you have got to 

 accept the conditons as you find them today. You may have one 

 hundred varieties that may be better than the Wealthy, iDUt I called 

 your attention to an apple that is called for to supply the demand. 



Mr. Blair : I was simply telling what would be the effect of im- 

 provement over his suggestion. (Laughter.) 



Mr. O. M. Lord : The probability is that Mr. Blair is compara- 

 tively unknown to the members of the society, but I will say that 

 under hard conditions he grows more apples than any other man 

 in our county, and has sold the past year a thousand bushels off his 

 place, and his place is on our prairie with a soil different from our 

 subsoil in the northwest ; there is hardly such a soil found anywhere 

 in the state as in that particular part of Winona county. Mr. Blair 

 claims he has not met with good success with the Wealthy. That 

 only illustrates what I said in my paper yesterday, that there are ex- 

 ceptions to all general rules. 



Mr. Frank Yahnke : I would like to make a few remarks on 

 the question that the young man raised, and I am sorry he got so 

 little encouragement, but the reason was that his question was a 

 little too large. If he had started with forty acres I believe he would 

 have met with a more cordial response. I believe if a young man 

 goes to work now if he has the money he had better buy ten acres 

 and plant one thousand trees and take care of them, and by the time 

 they bear he will be older and have more experience, and when those 

 first trees bear they will bring enough to support him and give him 

 money to buy more land. But by all means he should choose a good 

 locality and select a good variety of trees, and I believe he cannot 

 do much better than to use the Wealthy, but he might try some 

 other varieties as to whether he could do better. Then plant enough 

 to make a commercial orchard, that is, if he has got to ship his ap- 

 ples. If he selects a piece of land near by a home market I would 

 advise him to plant five or six varieties ; that is, to get some early 

 varieties, get a few Duchess, get some varieties that are good eating 

 apples at the time the Duchess are in market. He wants a first-class 

 eating apple during the season of the Duchess. I would advise him 

 to plant such an apple in the orchard and then plant the Wealthy 

 and then follow with something later than the Wealthy, so he can 

 have them at all seasons. If a man buys a piece of land near a home 



