GENERAL FRUITS. 131 



old from a large plum bought in the city, that winters without pro- 

 tection, from which I expect a beauty. 



Every year I plant apple seed; as yet none have wintered. 



My next hobby was to raise pears by grafting- on the thorn apple. 

 The pear grafts were sent for without any thought of hardiness, and 

 duly set. Many of the grafts made a fine growth and lived through 

 the first winter, but none through the second. I also tried the pear 

 and the Tahnan Sweet apple, grafted on the native wild apple. The 

 pear grafts did not live as long as those did on the thorn apple; the 

 Talman Sweet grafts lived through two winters, and the third sea- 

 son put out some blossoms and died. The wood of the stock and 

 graft did not unite. These failures took the novelty out of pear 

 culture; still when I bought apple trees again, I must try a few pear 

 trees. One of them has lived since eighteen hundred and seventy 

 one — that is, the roots. The top has never attained much size, often 

 killing back to the snow line and never giving any fruft. Besides 

 this tree, I have three varieties of pears grafted on a thorn apple tree> 

 that show a good health}^ growth. If they succeed, as they now pro- 

 mise, pears maj' j-et be raised here. 



All those 5'ears, from 1856 to 1863, apple culture here, where tried, 

 had been nearl5^ a failure, and only a few trees had given any fruit. 

 In the fall of 1863, I ordered sixty-eight apple trees, twenty different 

 varieties, and in the spring of 1861 set them on a piece of prairie that 

 had been cultivated several j'ears. It jnight be in place here to say 

 that the location of these trees and my orchard is on what is called 

 high prairie, that is, about eighty feet above the low ground half a 

 mile awaj' that surrounds it on three sides — no land as high near 

 it except a ridge about eighty rods to the north, which is fifteen feet 

 higher. It slopes slightly to the east. These trees were kept clean, 

 and a few of them bore fruit, a Greening, Price Sweet, Red Astrachan 

 and two Siberian crabs. None of this lot of trees are alive, but some 

 of the sprouts are still growing. 



In my next lot of trees, there were some Duchess, Transcendent 

 and Hislop that have done well and have given good crops for the 

 last fifteen j^earsand are a fair success, except that the Transcendents 

 have blighted badlj"; however, they are from eight to twelve inches 

 in diameter. As soon as these commenced bearing, I planted a large 

 quantity of seed, made 400 root-grafts and bought enough more to 

 make 1500 in all. I set them out in the spring of 1871, and with 

 much care have now living half the number, or 750 trees, and over 

 200 in bearing; some years receiving from the sale of their pro- 

 duct $150. 



It might be of interest and may be of profit to inexperienced be- 

 ginners in fruit culture for me to emphasize the statement that I 

 I have found it impossible to grow fruit trees and any kind of ani- 

 mal on the same land at the same time, not even a mouse, rabbit or 

 pocket gopher; they will kill the trees. The best protection for the 

 trees against these pests is kill the gophers bj' putting a piece of 

 poisoned apple in their hole where their freshest work shows; for 

 mice and rabbits, take the wire screens from old doors, cut it into 

 strips two and a half feet long and wide enough to encircle the tree» 

 put it around the tree from the ground up and with a pressure of 



