94 ANNUAL REPORT. - 
Nurserymen and tree-peddlers should regard the wants of the country more 
and their own private interests less, and never sell a tree which they have good 
reason-to believe will not give good satisfaction. In so doing, confidence will be — 
established in the minds of the people and the nursery business will be eer 
a more permanent basis. 
Seeding and Cultivation. 
’ There may be places where fruit trees can be set out and the land seeded at 
once to grass or Timothy, and the trees grow and do well, but I am quitesure that 
place cannot be found in Minnesota. It should be borne in mind that our air 18 
naturally dry, and our location subject to extreme drouths during the summers and 
early part of the falls, which have killed thousands of fruit trees, regardless of 
varieties, where the orchards have been neglected or seeded down to timothy, 
During the protracted drouth of last summer, I visited, I might say, scores of 
young orchards, and in every instance where they were cultivated, the trees were 
healthy and in a good growing condition, regardless of the drouth. But those 
that were neglected, or seeded to timothy, were invariably unhealthy, and often 
in 2 dying condition. 
If you expect fruit trees to grow, remain healthy, and in due time yield their 
fruit in a ripe condition, you must give them the same cultivation that a skillful 
farmer gives his corn and potatoes Anything short of this, taking one year with 
another, will result in failure. Thers is a false doctrine advocated by many, that 
fruit trees should not be cultivated, on the ground that it prevents the wood from 
ripening up in the fall. A little careful thought on this subject will convince 
the most skeptical that it is all wrong. Cultivation produces growth, health, 
quantity and quality, but the time of ripening is the same with the tree, potato 
and corn, with the exception of soil and location. There is no use of losing the 
use of land where fruit trees are set sufficiently far apart to plant between the 
rows with corn, potatoes, or any hoed crop. 
Crab Apples. 
Never grow apples and crabs together, on account of the latter’s blighting and 
spreading to other varieties that are not predisposed to blight. 
The crab apple is a substitute for the standard apple, on soils and locations 
where standard apples fail, such as very rich vegetable soil, locations very much 
exposed, level and inclined to be wet, very sandy, etc. To meet such soils and 
locations, several new varieties of crabs have recently been brought to the front, 
all possessing more or less merit, but I doubt very much whether any of them 
possess the merit of the well known Transcendent, which, with all its blight, has 
produced more good fruit than all the rest put together. 
Cracked Bark. 
In this and several of the northern states, it is not an unusual thing for the 
bark on fruit trees to crack near the ground, the south side of the tree to blister 
or become injured, also the forks and other parts of the tree, all of which is, 
without doubt, the result of the freezing and thawing of the sap at improper 
times. In former years, those blemishes or injuries on fruit trees annoyed me 
