196 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



survive, it would be unprofitable to seed it down with the 

 expectation of raising apples only. Apple trees about Lake 

 Minnetonka, as far as my experience goes, as a rule, never 

 reach the time when they become profitable as an orchard, but 

 they begin to die off as soon as they begin to bear, and the 

 only way you can make this orchard profitable is by raising 

 something else on the ground at the same time. It is not a 

 matter of theory with me, because I have had a good deal of 

 experience, and I would not think of such a thing as seeding 

 down an orchard on my place. In my experience I had two 

 orchards planted side by side; in one I planted raspberries, and 

 I had just as good a crop of raspberries from that orchard as 

 if the trees had not been there. It cost me nothing to have 

 those trees standing there. After they had been there four 

 years they came into bearing, and within a year after that the 

 trees began to die off, and at the termination of ten years 

 there was not one tree left, and that is the way you have got to 

 grow apple trees around lake Minnetonka. I took from that 

 piece of ground over four hundred dollars worth of apples 

 during those ten years. Now those apples cost me nothing 

 except planting the trees. If any of you gentlemen about 

 Lake Minnetonka who plant apple trees will try to raise some- 

 thing else on the same ground with your apples, it will pay 

 you for your trouble. 



Now in the other orchard that was not cultivated we gath- 

 ered a few apples, but not one-tenth as many as we did from 

 the one that was cultivated, and they were inferior in size, the 

 crop was small, and the trees also winter killed. It is different 

 with Mr. Somerville; where he lives he plants trees with the 

 expectation of keeping them thirty years. He has an orchard; 

 we have no orchards. 



H. L. Gordon: Mr. Latham speaks for the south side of 

 Lake Minnetonka only. I live on the north side. I have trees 

 that are twenty years old and are bearing regular crops. My 

 oldest lot of Duchess now average two hundred bushels an acre 

 and I call that a paying crop. They are still living and have 

 borne crops ever since they were six to eight years old, and 

 with the exception of one year I have never failed to get a 

 paying crop. There was one year that I only got four bush- 

 els, but I can say that it was the only partial failure I ever 

 had. I approve of Mr. Latham's way of setting some raspber- 

 ries with them. I cultivated the ground until the trees were 

 some ten or twelve years old, until the limbs were in the way, 



