352 ANNUAL REPORT 



varieties that will withstand the severities of our northern win- 

 ters as you are here in Minnesota. As one of a committee ap- 

 pointed by our state society three years ago to investigate the 

 Russian apples as grown in our state and Minnesota, as to quality 

 and hardiness, and also to discover if there are any good winter 

 varieties, I had hoped to gain some valuable information at this 

 meeting; but though there has been for years past a fine, credita- 

 ble and beautiful show of Russian apples at the state fairs of 

 Wisconsin and Minnesota, for the past ten years in attendance 

 at the winter meetings of both states, I could carry all the Rus- 

 sian apples I have seen at both places in a bushel basket. We 

 usually have — as you have here — a fine show of native seed- 

 lings, which still shows they are ahead. They must be recognized 

 and their cultivation encouraged until something better is found. 

 The best twenty years of my life have been spent in apple grow- 

 ing. I have raised in a single year 1,000 bushels — half of them 

 winter varieties. Hie past year all the apples I stored in my 

 cellar for winter use were the product of seedling trees — one of 

 which has borne twenty-one consecutive crops, the other four- 

 teen crops, but the young trees of neither are good enough to re- 

 commend; still I keep setting them — for my own use — and will 

 do so until I find something better. Continual planting is the 

 only way to produce fruit for the family. 



Mr. Brand. What is the character of the soil and how far are 

 the trees standing from water ? 



Mr. Philips. The trees are in a limestone soil and stand some 

 five hundred feet from running water. ^ 



BRANCH SOCIETIES. 

 Mr. Barrett then offered the following resolutions: 



Resolved, That the state be divided into four horticultural districte, to be 

 known as the Northern, the Southern, the Bjkstern and the Western Minnesota 

 Horticultural Districts, and societies duly organized therein. 



Resolved, That to make these missionary labors a success, the legislature be 

 memorialized for an appropriation of $1,000, giving to each district the equal 

 sum of two hundred and fifty dollars, said money te be put into the haads of 

 the treasurer of this Society, to be drawn upon the orders of its President, 

 countersigned by its Secretary, and audited in its accounts. 



Resolved, That the Is^ansactions of the district societies be incorj)orated in the 

 annual rej^orts of this Society. 



