STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 147 



teentli to a quarter of an inch in width. Our opinion of its 

 value to horticultural interests may be understood when the 

 price we paid for the control of the tree is known — one thou- 

 sand dollars. 



IOWA SEEDLINGS. 



In 1885 our attention was called to an orchard of 300 trees 

 growing in l^orthern Iowa, not far from the famous Hesper seed- 

 ling orchard, that gave to the I^orthwest through our instru- 

 mentality, the Hybrids, known as the Minnesota, Beecher's 

 Sweet, Maiden Blush, Conical, etc. Personal investigation 

 made in the time of fruit, in the fall of 1885, showed seventy odd 

 trees in full fruit, and many others not yet bearing. The seeds 

 from which these trees originated were saved in Northern New 

 York in 1861, from selected apples cut for drying, and were 

 planted the following spring. The seedling trees stood in nur- 

 sery rows in a neglected garden, overrun with weeds and 

 browsed by cattle, until the spring of 1865, when such as had 

 survived the ordeal were transplanted into orchard rows, where 

 many of them are now standing; and all things considered, they 

 are by far the most remarkable collection of natural fruit in the 

 West, many of the trees being from 10 to 15 inches in diameter 

 and from 20 to 30 feet in height, presenting every type of growth 

 that an apple tree could assume. 



The site selected for this orchard was extremely unfavor- 

 able; the soil a rich, black muck, and so saturated with moisture 

 that the lower edge of the orchard is a springy bog; the slope a 

 sharp, southern exposure; and on the east, north and west is a 

 dense grove of maple and willow, effectutUy shutting out the free 

 circulation of air, which, of course, renders the orchard very 

 liable to fire-blight; very few of the seedlings show any sign of 

 blight, however. 



In the same plat are planted grafted fruits, of many of the 

 ironclads. Duchess, Wealthy, Walbridge, Haas, Transcendent, 

 Whitney and Hyslop,many of which have been struck by blight; 

 all show the effects of the recent severe winters, and yet the best 

 of the seedlings show but little, if any, signs of injury from any 

 cause. 



The quality and variety of the fruit is as varied as could well be 

 imagined, being from the size of a Siberian up to a Pound Sweet- 

 ing; the predominating colors are yellow and pale green, though 

 twelve or fifteen of them are large in size, high in color and very 



