HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 303 



Peerless, now three years old. I bad about 75 Duchess seedlings 

 from seeds saved in 1882. Some of them not looking well in spring 

 of 1888 were grafted with Peerle s. Owing to the well known ten- 

 dency to reversion among seedlings I do not expect any great re- 

 sult from these, they not having been fertilized with anything that 

 I know of. Last spring I added Talman Sweet and Roman Stem 

 for experimental purpeses. Where I have used evergreens to 

 shade apple trees good results have been obtained. I most strongly 

 recommend the planting of evergreens by every person who owns 

 land. 



REPORT FROM EXPERIMENT STATION AT LA 

 CRESCENT. 



By J. S. Harris, Superintendent. 



MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE STATE HORTICULTURAL 



society: Taken as a whole the last season at La Crescent proved 

 an unusually dry one, yet fruit crops as well as other crops 

 have turned out very satisfactorily with the exception of straw- 

 berries. Strawberries were seriously in juried by a late frost oc- 

 curing after a portion of the fruit had set, and consequently in 

 many localities were less than half a crop With me the Crescent 

 was the only variety that amounted to anything. The Jessie pro- 

 duced a few fine berries but not more than one eighth as many as 

 the Crescent, Chas. Downing yielded about the same, Belmont 

 still worse and Manchester and Lyons Seedling none at all. 

 Raspberries w r ere a large and splendid crop. The Ohio black 

 cap and the Cuthbert red were the best. Marlboro did much bet- 

 ter than it has heretofore. The blackberry crop was immense. 

 The Ancient Briton is taking lead and the Wilson Junior does not 

 promise to be worth retaining. Our grapes all ripened perfectly 

 and all plants that were old enough fruited fairly well. We 

 think that among the newer varieties the early Victor has consid- 

 erable merit for locating where the Concord does not ripen perfect- 

 ly. The Empire State at its first fruiting is not as good as we 

 had expected. It may improve as the vines get older. The 

 Brighton is doing well and I think will prove of great value as a 

 market grape. The last year was a famous one for plums so far 

 as quantity goes, but I do not think the quality was generally up 

 to the average, owing to overbearing, extreme drouth and injury 

 to the foliage by green lice or flies. The De Soto, Cheney, Rolling- 

 stone and Vermillion are the best varieties that have yet fruited 

 with me. My trees of other select varieties are yet too young to 

 fruit, but are doing well. In apples, we had the best crop of 

 of Duchess we ever grew. Tetofsky also bore very well. It seem- 

 ed to be an off year with the Wealthy but our trees made a fair- 

 growth and have gone into winter under promising conditions. 

 The varieties of Russians receceived from the Minnesota state 

 experiment station passed the winter of 1888-89 without apparent 

 injury and most of them are looking pretty well at the present 



