470 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



mometcr 40 degrees below zero, and they came through in perfect 

 condition. I had to transplant them last year, so last fall, a year 

 ago this fall, they were not bigger than the ordinary one year apple 

 seedling. This year they have made a growth of four to five feet. 

 The buds of some of the standard apples like the Wealthy, Duchess 

 and Hibernal have made a growth of four to five feet. I have no 

 doubt at all that there will be no trouble. I do not intend to mulch. 

 Some of those Siberian crab seedlings were so poor I did not pay 

 any attention to them in the fall. They were left in the pots all 

 summer and were left out doors all winter, and the present spring 

 they leaved out the same as the others. If I have any prophecy to 

 make it is that our apple trees will be smaller than they are now, 

 and they will have to be planted closer together ; it will dwarf them, 

 but you will have an orchard which you will not have to mulch. 

 That is my opinion, subject to change, of course; my opinion is 

 that we will have the same experience the Russians have had. They 

 had to go outside of their own country to get stock hardy enough. 

 There is no stock, Russian or American, that will stand forty below 

 zero. We have to go entirely outside of the standard apple for stock 

 in the northern part of Minnesota, in North Dakota and in the north- 

 ern part of South Dakota. When you get to Iowa, the banana belt, 

 I have nothing to say. 



The President : I want to say to my friend, Mr. Freeman, not 

 in the way of answering his question, but to show that the case he 

 quoted is not at all conclusive. Thirty-four years ago I bought 

 several thousand trees, some of them large enough to set and some 

 root-grafts, from Mr. Sherman, of Rockford, 111. I had never heard 

 of any dust mulch. Every one of those trees was dead within three 

 years, within four at any rate. Does that show that the application 

 of the dust mulch kills trees ? Some have their orchards on tops of 

 hills, while others who have their orchards on the slope lost all their 

 apple trees. Does that show that those on the slope of the hill gen- 

 erally fail and those who have their orchard on the hill top always 

 succeed ? We have got to show that those trees my friend speaks 

 of were killed by want of water, for we have to water them through 

 the dust mulch, and if it can be proven that the dust mulch cut off 

 the supply of water so that they did not have enough, or if in either 

 case he can prove that they had too much water and the dust mulch 

 gave them an extra amount, more than they ought to have had, that 

 would be more conclusive, but simply the fact that he placed them 

 there and cultivated them well, gave them this dust blanket, and they 

 died, does not seem to me to prove much of anything. You will find 

 men practicing all kinds of cultivation in all kinds of locations that 

 lose all their trees. One man I know bought some and put them 

 right in the raw prairie sod. He dug large holes and put them in, 

 and they bore heavy crops for many years ; but it does not follow 



