GENERAL FRUITS. 139 



GENERAL FRUITS. 



FIRST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT. 



R. C. KEEL, ROCHESTER. 



Another year has passed since we had the pleasure of meeting- 

 each other and, I think it is safe to say, a year of great discourag-e- 

 ment to most of the fruit growers of our state. But this, although 

 it comes hard to many of us, should not mislead us or cause us to 

 lose our faith and courage in the good work, but we should take 

 fresh hold with new energy and hope that 1894 will be one of the 

 greatest fruit years Minnesota has ever known. 



There is not much to be reported about our fruit crop, for, in fact, 

 we had no crop in this vicinity. The strawberries came out in good 

 condition in the spring, and how good we felt when on a pleasant 

 Sunday afternoon we went across our ten acre strawberry bed to see 

 the twenty different varieties of plants, each one striving to beat the 

 other in producing flowers. But, alas, blossoms are not fruit, and 

 they turned out to be a total failure. There was not much differ- 

 ence in any of the varieties; the old ones, such as Jessie, Bubach, 

 Crescent, Capt. Jack, Warfield and Sharpless did not produce one 

 perfect berrj^. 



Some of the newer varieties, such as Bederwood, Gillespie, Craw- 

 ford, Princess and others produced some very fine fruit; but these 

 are yet new and not many of them planted, though I have no doubt 

 but what some of them will be the leading varieties in the future. 

 The older ones, such as Warfield, Crescent, Haverland and others, 

 that have been our standards, should not be cast aside because they 

 were a failure this year. The reason of the failure has been a mys- 

 tery to me and I think to everybody else. At first I thought it was 

 due to not having fertilizers enough — every third row were fertilizers 

 of the best varieties; but I looked over some fields where every other 

 row was of the staminate varieties, and even these bore no perfect 

 fruit. It seemed as though they were not able to fertilize themselves. 

 This year I put in two rows of staminates to every three rows of 

 pistillates; this I think in an ordinary year will improve the quality 

 of the fruit. 



The black raspberr-.es covered the previous winter came out in 

 prime condition; those not covered were hurt. Ohio, Taylor and 

 Gregg are mostly grown here; the latter left uncovered were killed 

 to the ground. Ohio and Taylor would have produced a good crop 

 had it not been for the continuous drought we had all through their 

 maturity, but, after all, they were the best paying crop we had. I 

 like these two varieties. The Taylor is early and ripens evenly and 

 quickly, and the fruit is mostly out of the way when the Ohio comes 

 into market. 



The red raspberries were as much a failure as the strawberries, but 

 that was all on account of the drought. A man living west of our 

 town had some Cuthberts planted on lowland close to a spring, and 

 he raised the finest berries I ever saw, and they turned out well. 

 The Shaffer's Colossal were the best I had and sold readily for 12^-2 

 cents per quart. 



