252 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



had anything of my own I wanted it separately, or I did not 

 want it at all. 



Pres. Underwood: What amount of fruit did you get off that 

 Malinda tree that was so heavily loaded? 



Mr. Somerville: I have a Malinda tree about twenty years 

 old; it is top-worked on the Transcendent crab. Two years ago 

 I picked four sugar barrels full of apples off that tree. Last 

 year it had an ordinary crop, perhaps a barrel. This year, I 

 am satisfied, there were thirty bushels on it. I do not think I 

 ever saw a tree so heavily loaded as that was. It was so thickly 

 loaded with fruit that it broke off limbs six inches in diameter. 



Mr. Kimball: How long is it since that Malinda tree was 

 top -worked? 



Mr. Somerville: About twenty years ago. 



Mr. Kimball: When did it come into bearing? 



Mr. Somerville: It had been top-worked ttree years when it 

 came into bearing, and it has borne every season since. I have 

 Malinda apples on exhibition that were top-worked three years 

 ago. When you raise them from little trees they are some time 

 coming into bearing, but top-worked they come into fruit very 

 soon. 



Mr. Brackett: Woujd not the Transcendents affect those other 

 young trees that are planted there by blighting? 



Mr. Somerville: I cannot say. Wherever they have blighted, 

 I have dug them up. I have tested about three hundred 

 varieties of Russians, and those three hundred I have sim- 

 mered down to eighty varieties, and those eighty varieties 

 are the ones I have been experimenting with, and two or three 

 varieties do not blight in the least. 



Pres. Underwood: How many apples did you grow this 

 year? 



Mr. Somerville: About 1,500 bushels. 



Pres. Underwood: What did you average in price per bushel? 



Mr. Somerville: I sold them to shippers for 60 cents a 

 bushel. We sold our Transcendents for 60 cents and our 

 Duchess for 60 cents. We did not have many Wealthy. 



Mr. Andrews: How did your Longfields do? 



Mr. Somerville: They bore very finely, and I also sold some 

 of those, but we use a great many in our family, and I have got 

 a good many in the cellar yet. 



Pres. Underwood: How did the other orchards in your 

 vicinity do? 



Mr. Somerville: The other orchards in our vicinity did about 

 as usual; they had a fair crop. I think Mr. Keel's orchard was 

 well loaded, and pretty nearly' every farmer has more or less 

 trees on the farm, and they all had an average crop. 



