HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 313 



County, visited Mr. Lord at Minnesota City, several times, and 

 gardens of E Wilcox, near La Crosse, twice. At Excelsior I found 

 the seedling orchards of Peter M. Gideon bearing so little fruit 

 that nothing of certain value could be gleaned. A portion of the 

 trees look hard and good, and some will undoubtedly produce val- 

 uable fruit. His Peach garden was the most interesting object 

 presented to us. He has practically demonstrated that this fruit 

 can be successfully grown here. His method of procedure is to 

 set the trees on a mound or ridge in the center of the hole, direct- 

 ing the roots to the two sides of the row and allowing none in the 

 direction of the row. At the approach of winter the trees are laid 

 down and covered. To lay them down a portion of the earth is re- 

 moved from over the roots, and the tree bent to the ground and 

 fastened there, then earth is thrown back over the roots, but none 

 on the trunk and branches, and the tree securely covered with straw 

 or corn fodder. Each spring the trees are uncovered and righted up. 

 By this method the roots are not injured, or but slightly so, and 

 the fruit he raises is much better than that usually found in our 

 markets. At Waconia we gave the orchard and experiment 

 grounds of Andrew Peterson a pretty thorough examination. 

 There was but little fruit upon his trees this year. Mr. Peterson 

 is testing the efficacy of thorough cultivation. After looking over 

 the orchard, we find his best and most promising apple trees are 

 about as follows: 



No. 3 m Lead about perfect. 

 " 4 m Ostrakoff Glass, good. 

 " 14 m Anisim, " 



" 28 m Kluevskoe, 



Green Sweet, " 



Red Repka, " 



Hibernal & Leiby " 

 . Plikanoff, 



Christmas apple, looking very well. 

 We should judge all of the above to equal the Duchess in hardi- 

 ness. One variety from Sweden, and one variety of seedling 

 promises value for favorable locations. He has several varieties of 

 plums in fruit. The Harriet plum and Cherry, were about ripe 

 and very fine. It was rather an off year for fruit at Rochester, and 

 about the best seen were two comparatively new hybrids, viz: Gid- 

 eon, No. 6 and Sweet Russett. Both seem to be worthy of trial. 

 The Gideon No. 6 was nearly as large as Fameuse, of fine form, a 

 beautiful red color, good quality. The Sweet Russet is the larg- 

 est and best sweet crab I have yet seen. The seedling apple trees 

 heretofore noted in Houston Co., are still looking promising. We 

 found one old tree at Brownsville, that had stood the winters of 30 

 years, and is still in fair condition and bearing fruit, said to be a 

 fair keeper. Mr. Wilcox, of La Crosse, has for many years been 

 collecting buds and scions of seedlings and new varieties that are 

 reported hardy, and top working them upon crabs in his orchard; 

 some have failed from want of congeniality, but a few have made 

 a perfect union and are doing well. There are two or three varie- 



