HOKTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 353 



OLD DUCHESS TEEES. 



By Asa R. Snow, of Lidia, Scott County, Minn. 



I live on a high knoll about three miles south of Spring Lake. 

 My orchard site which was heavy timber thirty years ago, is now 

 fully exposed on the south, west and north. I have twenty or more 

 Duchess that I planted over twenty years ago. They are still good 

 trees. This last summer we sold about seventy-five bushels from 

 them and in the summer of 1888 more than one hundred bushels. 

 The trees have paid well for the last fifteen years or more. They 

 take up but little ground and the money I get for them comes the 

 easiest of any I get from the farm. I have one good Wealthy tree. 

 I paid $1.25 for it in the spring of 1878. It was a seedling Crab 

 tree with two limbs, each limb being grafted with Wealthy, 

 about twelve or eighteen inches above the forks. The grafts 

 are from four to five feet from the ground. This tree has 

 been a very profitable one. I picked as many as four bushels 

 from it in 1888. It has been bearing ten years. I think the 

 Wealthy should be top grafted on some hardy Crab if sold in this 

 state. I have had more than one hundred of them root grafted set 

 the same year as the one spoken of and I know they do not pay. 

 As for the Duchess the man who owns a piecepf .land and lives on it 

 and will not grow Duchess apples for his family, can not be called 

 one of the best citizens. I feed the ground well, cultivate it well 

 and mulch every winter after the ground freezes. I am careful 

 not to hit the trees to injure the bark while cultivating and do not 

 plow deep. 



PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS OF McLEOD CO. HORTICUL- 

 TURAL SOCIETY. 



By M. Cutler Sumter. 



Fellow Members, Ladies and Gentlemen: 



Another cycle of time has passed and we gather once more for 

 mutual benefit and to compare notes and receive and give instruc- 

 tion in our several vocations. 



The past season has been one of discouragement and disappoint- 

 ment to most horticulturalists of the Northwest. Untimely frosts 

 and drought have blasted our hopes. Still we must not look back 

 or become discouraged. The darkest part of the night is often 

 just before day and we have good reason to believe that those who 

 persevere and care for their fruit well, will reap a good reward. 



Last winter being mild most small fruit came out in good con- 

 dition, and gave promise of a good harvest, but the frosts of the 

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