330 ANNUAL REPORT 



other varieties. We now have about four hundred Duchess in orch- 

 ard, and last spring set about five hundred more. Duchess will be- 

 come still hardier if we propagate from our best and healthiest bear- 

 ing trees, and it may be deteriorate by being propagated from feeble 

 young trees. It needs a plentiful supply of moisture in the soil. The 

 most of those that have died in Minnesota have become enfeebled 

 either from lack of moisture to enable them to make a perfect and 

 healthy growth, sunscalding of the body when exposed to the winter 

 sun before the bark had become rough, or from being left in the fall 

 with a clean, cultivated surface around the roots. Duchess needs a 

 low, large, spreading top on the south and southwest sides. With 

 such a top, soil reasonably moist and the roots protected with a thin 

 mulch in the fall, it will not be injured. As long ago as 1872 our 

 friend Harris put himself on record saying apple trees will grow any 

 place where water stands within two feet of the surface. 



The unusually wet fall of 1886 taught me a valuable lesson on soils 

 and conditions of soils for apple trees. The latter part of September 

 and first half of October was extremely wet. I then had one hundred 

 and twelve seven-year-old Duchess on some very moist timber land. I 

 said to myself those trees will show a yellow, sickly leaf next summer 

 and undoubtedly will die from a wet root. The summer found them 

 with a fair crop of fruit and a vigorous, healthy leaf and growth, and 

 notwithstanding the ground was so wet in April and May, 1886, that 

 we could not get onto a part of it till very late, they bore a fine crop 

 of fruit, and are now models of health and vigor. They stand on a 

 western slope with ground descending gradually to the south and west 

 for a mile. 



The past two summers I have seen thousands of good, healthy bear- 

 ing Duchess trees scattered through all of the following counties: 

 Rice, Steele, Faribault, Waseca, Le Sueur, Redwood, Lincoln, Lyon, 

 Sibley, McLeod, Scott, Dakota, Carver, Ramsey and Goodhue. I am 

 firmly of the opinion that before the close of this century we may 

 reasonably expect to supply our own market for apples of its character 

 with our own productions. In the summer of 1886 Duchess apples 

 were so plentiful in our market that they sold as low as fifty cents a 

 bushel for a few days, and some were sent to other points. The trees 

 are now being planted largely. 



FALL AND WINTER APPLES. 



As we have now been informed where our summer apples are to 

 come from, where shall we look for our fall and winter apples. I an- 



