348 ANNUAL REPORT 



season; handsome and better in quality. The tree is fifty -two inches 

 in circumference and thirty feet across the top. It is a true ironclad. 



We have one tree of Drake apple, top worked on a seedling crab. 

 This tree bore more than a barrel of fine apples in 1886. The original 

 Drake was a seedling near Northfield, grown from seed from New 

 Hampshire about 1856 or 1857. It was dug out as worthless in 1873. 

 Our live bearing Drake is the only one left of several fine top-grafted 

 trees; and the reason why it is a good tre'e is because it is on a hardy 

 stock, and has formed a low spreading, heavy top to the southwest, 

 that shades the forks of the tree from the sun. 



Of the Peerless apple last spring we used it to top-graft seven vari- 

 eties of crab apples besides putting in a few hundred root grafts. All 

 the top grafts made a good growth and we will be able to report upon 

 it more fully after another season's growth. 



RUSSIAN APPLES. 



W e .received from the Department of Agriculture in the spring of 

 1873, sixty-five varieties of New Russian apples. Some of them I 

 top- worked on bearing crab trees and the rest were stock-grafted close 

 to the ground on four-year-old seedling crab trees. All of those top- 

 grafted on bearing trees came into bearing but soon killed with blight. 

 Some of them were on the Berry crab, above mentioned; not one was 

 left in 1879. Of those grafted at the ground nearly all came into 

 bearing but soon died — with blight or cold. Most of them bore fruit 

 of a worthless character. Four trees are still alive, two of them bear 

 a small crop of worthless apples. One bears a few very small, early 

 apple, not so large as Transcendent; a very fair fruit for its size. The 

 other is a very fine tree but bears only a small crop of fair-sized sweet 

 apples. There were two fine trees of Longfield that bore a fair crop 

 in 1882, but killed in 1884; were badly injured in 1883. 



In the spring of 1883 we set out one hundred two-year-old trees re- 

 ceived from Prof. Budd. There has not been a blossom on any one 

 of them yet, and but few if any of them will stand this climate. At 

 the present time they do not look as though they were adapted to this 

 latitude. 



Last spring we transplanted about seventy-five seedling Duchess 

 into orchard rows. These trees were grown from seed saved from 

 Duchess apples which were latest in ripening. Every tree made a 

 good growth last season. A few months more time is necesary to en- 

 able us to see what efi'ect 48° below zero has had on newly trans- 

 planted Duchess seedlings. 



