THE ORCHARDS OF MINNESOTA. 83 



orchard is situated in about the latitude of St. Paul, it should be a 

 S;reat encouragement to all orchardista south of that parallel. 



KAKMINCJTOX. 



Our next exploration was in the direction of Fanniugton, by the 

 way of Minneapolis and Ft. Snellin^, using- our bicjxles. We noted 

 on the road from Ft. Snelling' south the almost total absence of any- 

 thing- like a good farm orchard in all the 25 miles, and it was a gen- 

 uine pleasure to look over the fence three miles south of Farijiington 

 and see such a comfortable orchard of good old trees on the pleasant 

 homestead of \V. L. Parker. The Duchess here seems entirely 

 healthy and the Tetofsky a good and profitable tree. The Hibernal 

 was heavilj' loaded with its third consecutive heavy crop. The 

 Minnesota crab, is large, healthy and bearing well. The Virginia crab 

 is a favorite a tine bearer; fruit generally larger than Transcendent, 

 a better keeper and fully as salable. There is nothing in the loca- 

 tion of this orchard that would seem to make it very favorable. It 

 is on a rather level prairie and with slight protection except 

 from natural groves at some distance. Mr. Parker's success is 

 doubtless largely due to persistent, intelligent planting of the best 

 varieties. 



LAKE CITY. 



With considerable regret that we were unable to visit other 

 orchards in the vicinity of Farmington, we left the highway and 

 took the cars for Lake City, where we arrived late at night, but not 

 too late to receive the cordial greeting of the president of our soci- 

 ety. On the following day, we visited the orchards and grounds 

 near the residence, which is situated on the bench below the bluffs 

 of the river. One fine orchard of Duchess and Wealthy, which had 

 arrived at profitable bearing age, has entirely failed on this site, and 

 the later plantings do not indicate that this is a favorable location, 

 although old trees of several varieties of crabs and hybrids are 

 standing in fair condition, Early Strawberry, Orange and Pickett's 

 Prolific among them. The latter is a fruit of good size and the tree 

 exceedingly prolific. 



On this, their tuain nursery grounds, we noted a very fine and per- 

 fect stand of spring set strawberries. They use a transplanting tool 

 and plant quite closely in the row. We also observed the great 

 beaut}-, hardiness and drouth-resisting qualities of juniper savin 

 as a hedge plant. It should entirelj' supersede the arbor vitae. In 

 another part of the grounds on somewhat higher land sloping to 

 the north, we were shown an orchard planted ten or twelve j-ears, in 

 a soil quite sandy and too dry for the best health of the trees. In 

 this was a large variety of Russian and seedling trees coming into 

 full bearing, but whose names were lost and many of which we were 

 tinable to identify. The Hibernal was there in superb health and 

 heavily loaded, the Anisim was easy to identify witli its tremendous 

 load of rich red fruit, showing, however, some of the weakness found 

 at Mr. Peterson's place. Antonovka was a fine tree nearlj- free from 

 bliglit and no show of past injury from that cause. Yellow Trans- 

 parent was blighting severely. A tree strongly resembling the Bode 



