120 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



NOTES FROM THE FARMERS' INSTITUTE. 



CLARENCE WEDGE, HORTICULTURIST, FARMERS' INSTITUTE. 



It was a very pleasant surprise to your institute worker to tind 

 the conditions in the pine reg'ions of our state so favorable to our 

 art. The better rainfall, moist soil and comparative freedom from 

 withering southwest winds, tog'ether with exceptional market 

 facilities, make it the best small fruit section of the state, and it 

 may well be doubted if with proper selection of varieties we have a 

 more favorable location for the larger fruits, especially plums and 

 crabs. At Rush Citj^, where we began our work after the holidays, 

 we found in the audience a man who had brought with him for his 

 noon lunch a pocket full of beautiful Walbridge apples. We had 

 the pleasure of spending the night at his home and looking over 

 his orchard. While his trees of the Walbridge were, as we had 

 expected to find them, injured in the forks of the main branches^ 

 it was certainly very wonderful to see a variety that is scarcely 

 hardy enough for central Iowa looking as well and bearing as well 

 as it is fifty miles west of St. Paul. Single trees of his Transcendent 

 crabs have borne an average of ten bushel per annum for some 

 years past. Considerable blight is seen on the trees, but otherwise 

 this variety is in good health, and the largest of seven old trees 

 measured fortj'-five inches in circumference of trunk. His Early 

 Strawberry, sixteen inches, fine and fruitful, was in perfect health, 

 except blight; Maiden Blush crab, nearly perfect trees, twenty-two 

 inches in girth; Wealthy and Haas, the latter twenty inches in girth, 

 looking no better than Walbridge but fruitful and profitable; 

 Russian sweet apple, name lost, is in excellent condition with little 

 blight. Mr. M. Denning, the owner of this orchard, is b}' no means 

 a careful or progressive horticulturist, and his varieties are all in 

 a muddle. The orchard is not in what would be called a favorable 

 slope, and the trees are in a matted sod, but the proximity to Rush 

 lake and the rich retentive soil have doubtless combined to make 

 it so good and profitable. Mr. Denning sold last seasoti $100 worth 

 of Turner raspberries from one-sixteenth of an acre, and has also 

 quite a number of promising plum trees. 



At Aitkin, we found the first city in our travels in the woods that 

 appeared to appreciate the value of the beautiful native pine and 

 other trees. As a rule, the original forest trees are nvercilessly cut 

 down and those who care for shade obliged to plant anew. At 

 Brainerd, we found great interest in all fruits. We found fine crab 

 trees growing in the city, and from the representations of those who 

 attended the institute at Bay Lake they have an especially favorable 

 location at that point. Robert Maghan, of the latter point, has one 

 Transcendent crab that has borne as much as five bushels per 

 annum. He is also growing some of the standard apples. D.Arch- 

 ibald, of Bay Lake, reports the Florence crab the hardiest and best 

 tree he has tried and a very heavy bearer. He has picked in all as 

 much as twelve bushels from his two trees of this varietj-. At 

 Little Falls, we visited the orchard and fruit garden of a man 

 who sells $30 worth of plums and $50 worth of crabs per year. We 

 measured some fine apple trees but have lost the figures. He was 



