

336 ANNUAL REPORT 



country who had any trees left although everyone had planted an 

 orchard. They told me the reason. They cultivated well, trimmed 

 the trees high and every fall wound the stems of the trees from the 

 ground to the limbs with a hay-rope. Then they arranged their 

 groves so the snow did not drift inside. They had no wind-breaks 

 when they set their orchards in 1878. The hay-rope saved the trees 

 from sun-scald in February, March and April and also from rabbits. 

 Their best trees are Duchegs, Early Strawberry and Transcendent. 



Martin Penning at Sleepy Eye has the best and largest lot of 

 Seedling Plums I have ever seen. Last August I called on Mr. 

 Heidemann at New Ulm. He has a fine native plum tree small 

 and crooked, fruit very largp. With Mr. Heidemann I visited the 

 vineyard of Peter Mack. Mr. Mack ha3 a very large quantity of 

 Clinton and finds them very profitable. He also has a long list of 

 other varieties and has a very good hedge of Buckthorn. Mr. 

 Henry Miller in Nicollet county has some fine trees of the Arctic, 

 a Hybrid Crab, and a great many of that variety were found in 

 Nicollet and Sibley counties. The fruit is larger than Hyslop and 

 better, but has not been fruited long enough to determine whether 

 the trees will blight after heavy bearing. In McLeod county, Mr. 

 Ezra Holmes has ten fine bearing trees of Briars Sweet, all there 

 is left from one-hundred Crab trees. They were bearing heavily 

 last fall. 



William Bergen in Sibley county has some fine native plums; 

 several varieties were procured for trial. His P. O. is Le Sueur. 

 Mr. P. W. Biermann of Moltke, Sibley county, also has a very fine 

 native plum. He has also planted one-hundred Scotch Pine and 

 induced his neighbors to do likewise. Mr. Wolford of Medford, 

 has a seedling Grape of value for its earliness. It is a seedling 

 from Delaware crossed with Hartford; sweet and very early. He 

 also has several seedling Apples and Hybrids several years in 

 bearing, one of them a much finer tree than Whitney and 

 another bearing a little apple as large as Minnesota same season 

 but a very prolific bearer. I have them on trial now two years old. 



Mr. C. F. Miller of Forest, Rice county, has the finest lot of 

 large Evergreens I have seen in the state and is good authority on 

 Evergreens. His White Spruce are as fine as any Colorado Blue 

 Spruce. His White Pine and Balsam Fir are simply majestic. 

 Mr. C. P. Nichols of Dakota county, P. O. Northfield, has become a 

 public benefactor by planting largely of Evergreens aud getting his 

 neighbors to do likewise. Mr. E. W. Hoff„of Castle Rock, has the 

 best tree of the Duchess I have seen. It is the only tree standing 

 where an orchard was set in 1857, stands on level ground all alone, 

 timber 20 or 30 rods north — 6 to 8 rods west — 10 rods south and 

 one row of shade trees a few rods east; two-thirds of the top is 

 south of the center of the trunk. It produced 25 bushels in 1884, 

 bore in 1886, 1887, and a very heavy crop in 1888. It now looks 

 sound and healthy. A cut of this tree should be procured and 

 inserted in our report, as illustrating better than any theory the 

 best way to form the top of an apple tree. From there I went to 

 see the pioneer vineyardist of Scott county, Mr. Jacob Hattenbur- 



