276 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



bearing- a double crop in alternate years is very great upon a tree, 

 and when combined with a severely dry soil or hard winter, likely 

 to prove fatal. Our Wealthy trees are barren this year, although 

 thinned to the extent of three-fourths of their fruit a year ago, but 

 the Longfield is again heavily loaded, although they produced more 

 than the Wealthy last year and are several years younger. Char- 

 lamoff is so far an excellent annual bearer. Hibernal and Repka 

 Malenka are inclined to follow the Duchess in overdoing one year 

 and resting the next. Yellow Sweet blooms profusely but drops 

 nearly all its fruit before it is larger than a hickory nut; the Martha 

 crab does the same as a young tree but later on is very prolific. 



Pears. Pear on apple has borne fruit three seasons and still 

 clings through its knotty union to the supporting apple branch- 

 Specimen pears can thus be easily grown, bnt it does not by any 

 means solve the problem of pear growing- in our state. 



Plums. -All kinds of plums of bearing age are well loaded. The 

 Itasca, or Aitkin, plum has alread}^ developed fruit as large as an 

 average ripe Desota, and the end is not yet. It is the most promis- 

 ing variety of stone fruit on our place. It was interesting to note 

 the difference in the susceptibility of a number of varieties to the 

 plum pocket fungus. Desota, Wolf, Rockford, Hawkeye and Black 

 Hawk were almost free from it; Cheney, Forest Garden and Itasca 

 more or less subject to it. The Compass cherry is again showing 

 lots of fruit on yearling- trees and shows inclination to make a good, 

 shapely tree. 



Cherries. The only really fruitful variety we have is the Wragg, 

 and the quantity of cherries little three year orchard trees are bear- 

 ing is truly pleasant to see. Large trees of the Osthiem that ought 

 to be bearing bushels of fruit are barren as usual. If we can get a 

 few such crops from the Wragg, we can afford to see the trees die in 

 an occasional hard winter. 



Evergreens. The Black Hills form of the white spruce appears 

 to be of a richer, deeper green than the common white, and has 

 proved very tenacious of life Avhen transplanted. The Colorado 

 blue spruce is king of evergreens and has not shown a weak point 

 during the past five years. A specimen on our lawn has made a 

 growth of sixteen inches already the present season. Many of the 

 spruces in the nursery were seriously injured by the freeze in May 

 but are recovering and will, no doubt, make the finer trees for their 

 early shearing. The ponderosa and Austrian pines are proving 

 ainong the best, if not the most reliable, of pines at our place, al- 

 though nothing will displace the mountain pine for good and regu- 

 lar behavior under the most trjang circumstaces. The jack pine is 

 making an astonishing growth in the nursery, and as a windbreak 

 evergreens maj'^ be superior to the Scotch pine. We shall try growing 

 it from seed next season. The white pine, Norwaj' spruce and arbor 

 vitae have long ago been discarded from our list of valuable trees for 

 our section; indeed, there is no place in the west where the white 

 spruce would not make a better tree than the Norway for any 

 purpose whatever. 



