Minnesora State HorricutturaL Socrery. 93 
Location, 
Location should be high, dry, rolling land, with a heavy, firm and moderately 
rich soil with a subsoil sufficiently porous to give perfect drainage in a few hours. 
Soil. 
Fruit trees, especially standards, can not live in wet, sticky, sour land, of which 
large amounts are to be found in thisjand adjoining states. Permanent success 
in apple raising on the most of our soils depends largely on the amount of trench- 
ing and ditching done previous to setting the trees; and good{cultivation for 
several years afterwards, or at least till the trees are in good bearing condition, 
is the best possible practical protection ‘against drouth and root killing. A want 
of proper drainage about the roots of fruit trees, in my opinion, is one of the 
principal causes of root killing. When freezing in such a condition, the ground 
heaves and cracks, loosening the roots of the trees and exposing them to the air; 
which is fatal. 
In portions of the country where the land is low and inclined to be a little wet 
and sticky, good drainage for fruit trees can often be had by digging down a few 
feet, till a porous substance is found, and filling with small stone within three 
feet of the top and the balance with good soil, and setting the tree in the centre, 
a little deeper than it stood in the nursery. 
Trees. 
As a general rule, small fruit trees are not satisfactory in Minnesota to nursery 
men or those that buy them. When suffered the second year to branch from 
where they ceased growing the previous year, the branches are too near the 
ground, and the only remedy is to cut them off;{which is always injurious to the 
tree, by exposing the sap cells to the air, which is very apt to produce black heart. 
After experimenting for a few years by cutting“a part of my yearlings to the 
ground, and applying grafting wax, and allowing one bud to grow from the 
graft, which at the end of the growing season will be from three to four feet high, 
tapering like a whip stalk, as straight as a candle, I consider such trees the very 
best to set m orchard. They will branch at the proper height, and make beauti- 
ful trees. I am so well pleased with the experiment that I intend to cut all my 
yearlings down to the ground in the spring. This also saves a woyld of trim- 
ming and stripping of leaves. 
Varieties. 
It is a mistake and a great detriment in fruit-raising in Minnesota for the 
farmers and others to set out such a large variety of fruit trees, when it is well 
known by nurserymen and others, that there are but three varieties of standard 
apples in the state that have been thoroughly tested and are known to be relia- 
ble, namely, Tetofsky, Duchess and Wealthy; all good apples, summer, fall and 
early winter. If those three varieties were set out in large quantities in the 
«state, and no others, with the exception of a few crabs where standard apples 
will not live, and leave new varieties to amateurs and nurserymen, it would be 
but afew years till we would have all the fruit we could use, and more too. 
