380 ANNUAL REPORT 



FROM MANITOBA. 



Stonewall, Jan. 17, 1887. 

 S. D. Hillman, Secretary, etc.: 



It would have afforded me intense pleasure to be present at 

 your meeting to morrow and succeeding days to listen to tlie 

 interesting discussions which your comprehensive program must 

 call forth. Although an unasked correspondence may seem like 

 presumj)tion, I venture to write in the hope that through you 

 the following cranky notions may have an airing at your annual 

 gathering. 



WILD FRUITS OF MANITOBA. 



Blue, red, green and yellow plums, wild grapes, red cherry, 

 choke cherry, sand cherry (a low dwarf about eighteen inches to 

 two feet), red and black raspberries, gooseberry and black cur- 

 rants. Cultivated fruits — Turner, Hansel and blackcap (with- 

 out protection) rasi^berries; Houghton and Downing gooseber- 

 ries; red and white Dutch Cherry; Black Naples and other cur- 

 rants; and strawberries of many varieties, including "Manitoba 

 Wonder." W. B. Hall, of Hendingly, has also, I believe, suc- 

 ceeded in raising several varieties of crabs, and out of quite a 

 number planted some fifteen years ago, two Wealthy apples now 

 survive. Other persons have tried apples, but having, as I 

 contend, imported from southern nurseries unsuitable varie- 

 ties, and perhaps been the victims of unscrupulous tree hum- 

 bugs, have not succeeded in keeping trees aliv^e beyond the third 

 year. 



I have not yet tested anything beyond raspberries, gooseber- 

 ries and currants, but am now all aglow with zealous eagerness 

 to test fruit growing north of your northern borders, for the fol- 

 lowing reasons: 



1. If the orchardists of Minnesota have partially succeeded, the 

 difference in climate is not so great but we may have a chance of 

 success. 



2. The Eussian varieties give promise of hardiness, some of 

 same not being perfect in leaf, etc., in Iowa, and Prof. Budd re- 

 porting that such will do in the ^^ far NorthJ'^ 



3. Trees that have died here in the third year have invaria- 

 bly done so from the top. Might this not have been from imper- 

 fect circulation of sap, the stem and part of the roots being 

 thawed out and top roots in frozen ground? Would a flat stone 



