THE MINNESOTA 



HORTICULTURIST. 



VOL. 24. MARCH, 1896. NO. 3. 



THE ORCHARDS OF MINNESOTA IN AUGUST, 1895.- 

 JOINT REPORT OF COMMITTEE. 



CLARENCE WEDGE, ALBEKT LEA. 

 PROF. S. U. GREEN, ST. ANTHONY PARK. 



(Read at the annual meeting, Dec. 6, 1895.) 



EXCELSIOR. 



Your coiiiniittee began its work August 5th at the home grounds 

 and young- orchard of Peter M. Gideon, where, as in several other 

 places, our work was hindered by heavy rains. His orchard is situ- 

 ated in a clearing in hardwood timber, near Lake Minnetonka, on land 

 of moderate elevation. The trees are about seven 3'ear9 old and 

 were making a fair show of fruit. Considerable blight was present, 

 as much as or more than in any other place we visited. The Florence 

 crab was loaded heavilj' and seetns to give promise of being an extra 

 early bearer of a good general purpose crab for home use and early 

 market. The Peter and the Wealthy were said by Mr. Gideon to be 

 "right smart hard to tell apart." It is doubtless a case where the 

 seedling has so clearly reproduced the parent tree that there is little, 

 if any, choice in the two kinds. Mr. Gideon thinks that the dark red 

 crab shown at our fairs bj' Mr. Somerville and others, as "Gideon's 

 No. 0," is most likely his "Mary." Mr. Gideon'vS peach orchard was, 

 on account of the May freeze, carrying very little fruit, but the trees 

 were in fair condition and many of them four or five inches in diam- 

 eter of stem. 



It may not be generallj' known that Mr. Gideon has sold his old 

 place, where the original Wealthy, Martha and other noted seedlings 

 stood, and that his present orchard is a new plantation on a different 

 spot. He informed us that the original Wealthy tree, or rather the 

 sprouts from the same, were grubbed up by tlie parties to whom it 

 was sold to make room for suburban improvements. 



WACO.NIA 

 We next visited the orchard of Andrew Peterson, of Waconia. 

 The location here is on land originally covered with hardwood tim- 

 ber, in a region interspersed with small lakes. The soil is a reten- 

 tive clay, and the slope and exposure decidedly southern, with a 



