Miywesora Stare HorricuLtTurAL SocrerTy. ‘11 
FROM A. J. PHILLIPS. 
West Satem, La Crosse County, Wis., January 5th, 1878. 
Prof. C. Y. Lacy, Minneapolis, Minn. | 
Dear Srr—I have an earnest desire for the prosperity of your society and for 
the success of the horticultural enterprise in both northwest Wisconsin and in 
Minnesota. I enclose to you one dollar to pay my membership fees for another 
year, as I shall be anxious to see your report, even if I am not permitted to be 
present at your meeting. I perused it with interest last year. 
I fully agree with Messrs. Jewell, Grimes and Arnold, in the discussion on 
Mr. Pearce’s paper on Fall Planting and Root Killing. I have learned by expe- 
rience, at different times, with different varieties and under different circumstan- 
ces, that fall planting is not safe nor desirable, and should not be recommended 
to planters by nurserymen. Another thing nurserymen should be careful to do; 
to be very particular, in selling trees, to inquire about the soil and location of the 
man’s farm, and, if possible, to recommend the best place for setting the trees; 
not to lose interest in him as soon as his trees are delivered and paid for; for . 
success of the coming nurseryman depends on the work done by the present men 
in that business. ;, 
-Thave been fearful that the warm weather here in December, with the ther- 
mometer up to 60°, would start the trees, and prove very injurious; but as yet I 
have neither seen nor heard of any damage in this respect in this vicinity. Still, 
1 do not like the ground freezing up without snow, as it has done this time; and 
in order to correct this I have a man mulching all the while now. 
In my orchard of 2500 trees I have one hundred Wealthy, that are doing finely. : 
I am a little inclined to have Wealthy ‘‘on the brain,”’ for 1 do think it the most 
yvluable as a hardy tree of any in the Northwest, except, perhaps, the Duchess, 
and I am now ata loss which to give the preference as to hardiness, Orange 
Urab, Minnesota, Peach Crah and Whitney’s No. 20, areall growing fine, and seem 
to be perfectly hardy. Utter’s Red, Fameuse, Duchess, Red Astrachan, Tetofsky, 
Price’s Sweet and Haas, are my main varieties; but, with others, have to report 
but little fruit last season. 
I will close by giving you one of the many incidents of fruit-growing in the 
Northwest. On a pleasant day in the last of October, while hunting on the bank 
of Dead Coon lake, near the western extremity of Minnesota, I came up to a man 
who was busily engaged digging a hole in the ground. Said hole was about 
eight feet long, three feet deep and three feet wide. My curiosity was aroused; 
for I thought if any one was to be buried there it must be a Minnesota giant. I 
accosted him, and from his dialect I found him to be a German. I said, ‘‘ What 
are you going to bury?’’ ‘‘Oh,” he said, ‘‘Some apple trees.’’ He said he 
drove his oxen all night from Marshall, to get them home and buried as soon as 
possible. He invited -me to go to the house and see them, for I think he had 
already diseovered that his allusion to apple trees had touched me in a tender 
spot. I looked them over; fifty in number; cost $15; bought, I think, of an 
Owatonna nurseryman. On examination I found some Duchess and Transcend- 
ents that might in his location, grow and bear fruit. I found him to be a bach- 
elor, with no companion but his dog; and on looking over his land, which was 
rich prairie, where the winds seemed to have but little to break their fury for 
hundreds of miles; and hearing him ask the question, if I thought those trees 
