358 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



MANITOBA FRUIT NOTES. 



T. FKANKLAND, STONEWALL, MANITOBA. 



The season of 1896 was a peculiar one. After a winter of average 

 severity but more than usual snow-fall, about the middle of April 

 rains set in, and for a month the ground was so thoroughly soaked 

 that seeding and garden work was almost at a stand still. From the 

 early part of May to the beginning of June my trees were loaded 

 with blossoms and much fruit set, but a couple of nights chilly 

 enough to be frosty fixed the crop of the Cheney type of plums and 

 filled the trees with plum pockets. If fungicides are a preventative, 

 how can you explain the fact that the two outside trees of three were 

 covered with pockets and the middle one had none but carried a 

 load of plums to perfection? These trees stood five feet apart in the 

 row, rows six feet apart, and were all select Manitoba natives. As 

 each plum pocket contained seed germs, imperfect pollenization 

 could not be blamed. 



About 100 apple and crab trees blossomed and bore, many of them 

 for the first time. (These trees were planted eight and nine years 

 ago), and I was encouraged with a crop, small, it is true, of Recum- 

 bent, Anisim, Whitney, October, Russian Green and Victor among 

 large apples, and Sweet Russet, Hyslop, Orange, Tonka, Cherry and 

 two or three seedling hybrids of Gideon's unnamed. There are two 

 or three of Gideon's unnamed which, if thrifty growth, large, broad 

 leathery leaves indicate valuable fruit, you may expect a Manitoba 

 Wealthy from the product of trees which frost king's " Dartts" have 

 hitherto failed to effectuallj'^ "fearce." Now don't "Brand" me as a 

 seedling man, for I have so arranged my trees that some forty or 

 fifty kinds of Russian dwarfs are " Wedged" in among the seedlings, 

 and some are producing fruit fit to eat and blighting no worse than 

 they are for my friends in other parts of the province I received 

 samples of Oldenburg, Wealthy, Transcendant, Virginia, General 

 Grant, etc., which, with my own fruit, made a creditable showing at 

 our fall fair and raised ardent hopes that in the near future "even 

 Manitoba," "in favorable locations," may produce apples, Rus- 

 sians it may be, their seedlings or crab hybrids — something better 

 than the most "crabbed" of the crabs (see 1890 Report, page 143). 

 Surely, then, with a little longer growing season and climate a 

 little less severe, your people should take heart and persevere. 



Notwithstanding the " pockets " and the boys and girls, I marketed 

 about eight bushels of plums, at $3.00 per bushel, of Desota, Rolling- 

 stone, Wolf, Knudson and Luedloff, any one of which, to my taste, 

 for preserving or eating from the hand, is preferable to the inflated 

 skins of perfumed water from the Pacific coast. In cherries the 

 Ostheim (Budd's) has borne a few samples but so far is not a suc- 

 cess. The Rocky Mountain cherry on plum stock (from Budd) bore 

 fruit little better than the native; the sand cherry, Knudson's "Com- 

 pass," I have tasted and think it a new departure and a promising 

 fruit, and may have something more to say about it when it has 

 fruited here. 



