APPLES. 191 



them, for fancy's pleasure, and I am thus compelled to base my judgment 

 on my own experience and observation. If then you ask me shall we be 

 able to grow apples successfully in Minnesota, I answer yes; for if a per- 

 son without experience on a poor location and soil not adapted to orchard- 

 ing, has still been able to grow them to a profit in the past, it is a pretty 

 good guarantee he can do even better in the years to come. Notwith- 

 standing all that has been said and written about soil and location, we 

 find most of the trees planted with seeming indifference to the best coun- 

 sel in these particulars. In the yard or garden, regardless of soil or ex- 

 posure, is where they are generally put. For the other products the 

 farmer looks over his ground and says that piece is best adapted for hay, 

 it is low and level; hay will grow well there and it will be easy to,mow. 

 One piece is high and rolling, has good circulation of air, and wheat will 

 do well on it. Another piece is adapted to potatoes; still another to corn; 

 and so they are planted there. But the orchard is planted convenient to 

 the house, whether it is a good place or not. 



Now, if we consider what we have suffered most from, it will indicate 

 what we most need to provide against. Of one thing I feel certain, that 

 excessive drouth has worked greater injury to our orchards than anything 

 else. We could hardly have less moisture than we have had the past five 

 years. The drouth must have reached its height a year ago and culminated 

 in the general destruction that befell not only fruit trees, but shade trees 

 with surface feeding roots, such as hard maple, soft maple and elms, 

 which together with evergreens, shared the same fate. How was it done? 

 Just like hanging clothes on the line to dry, every particle of moisture was 

 exhausted from tree and ground, the roots perished, turned black and cir- 

 culation ceased. Although these conditions were general throughout the 

 state there were many exceptions. In some places there was more rainfall 

 than in others. Some soils were better calculated to hold moisture. Some 

 exposures could better withstand a drouth. With a clay soil on the shady 

 side of a hill evaporation does not take place so rapidly as with gravelly 

 soil on a level or a sunny side. So that persons who have a particularly 

 good location should take advantage of it by planting largely, while less 

 favored ones can plant fewer trees and bestow greater care on them. One 

 must not expect to plant and care for trees here the same as they do in 

 New York state. If it is less natural for them here than there, we must 

 study to overcome the difficulties. We may not grow celery in our gar- 

 dens with the same ease they grow it at Kalamazoo, but we can all learn 

 to grow it well. 



Perhaps we shall never grow tired of recalling to our minds the trophies 

 we have won where our Minnesota apples have come in competition with 

 eastern and southern fruits; but I will not recount the past for 1 must 

 speak for a moment of the present. The facts are, Minnesota is producing 

 quantities of early and fall apples and crabs already. In Wabasha and 

 adjoining counties some farmers raised last season more than they could 

 use and give away. They did not know how to put them on to the market 

 and so they allowed them to go to waste. "But," says one, "I haven't a 

 good location, and must use the one I have." In that case then try and 

 overcome its defects by the best of care. While the trees are young culti- 

 vate well, as they grow old manure and mulch liberally. One thing we 

 must make up our minds to. That is, trees will not live to be as old and 



