210 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



REPORT ON MR. A. G. TUTTLE'S RUSSIAN ORCHARD AT 



BARABOO, WIS. 

 By J. S. Harris, La Crescent. 



I visited the orchards of Mr. Tuttle at Baraboo, Wis., on November 

 28th, last, by direction of H. E. VanDtman, pomologist of the department 

 of agriculture at Washington, for the purpose of ascertaining the hardi- 

 ness and condition of the trees, value of the fruit keeping qualities, etc. 

 Mr. Tuttle has been conducting experiments with the newer Russians 

 for something over twenty years, and is, as far as I know, the first nur- 

 seryman in the country that ever received scions in any great num- 

 ber of varieties direct from Russia, he having received them through 

 Cassius M. Clay, when representing our government at St. Petersburgh. 

 This was the third visit 1 had made there. The first visit was made in 

 1884, in February, in company with A. W. Sias, of Rochester. At that 

 time we found the Russian orchard containing about two hundred trees, 

 two of a variety. The trees of the greater proportion of the varieties were 

 looking well, and an examination of the wood showed them to be in fine 

 condition. At that time Mr. Tuttle had a large orchard of the leading 

 reputed hardy American varieties that had been many years in bearing, 

 and a few varieties were apparently sufficiently hardy for profitable 

 culture, such as Tolman Sweet,Fameuse,Walbridge and others. He had an- 

 other orchard planted entirely with Duchess of about the same age as the 

 Russians, that seemed to be in perfect condition. The next February 

 after the winter of 1884-5, which wrought such destruction to the trees 

 throughout the entire Northwest, I had an opportunity to examine the 

 wood of over thirty of the varieties, in sections an inch or more in diame- 

 ter, along with the Duchess and Wealthy, and found all of them showing 

 less discoloration than the Wealthy, and twenty-five of them less than 

 the Duchess, and some twenty of them showed no discoloration what- 

 ever. 



In the summer of 1888, I paid his place another visit, and found about 

 sixty varieties in the Russian orchard bearing fruit, and although blight 

 was prevailing about Baraboo to an unusual extent, these trees showed 

 less blight, with few exceptions, than the Duchess, Tetofsky or Ameri- 

 can varieties, and quite a number of trees showed entire freedom from it. 

 At this time the Duchess orchard appeared to be all right, except show- 

 ing some spur blight, but the old orchard of Americans was in a very bad 

 condition, and several varieties past recovery. 



At this last visit we find the Russian orchard still containing over sixty 

 varieties of bearing trees and at least thirty of them are undoubtedly as 

 hardy as the Duchess, and none of them less so than the Wealthy, and the 

 orchard is in really better condition than any other orchard that I have 

 found in the Northwest. It is even in better condition than his Duchess 

 orchard on the same farm, for in that we found a number of trees that had 

 been quite seriously injured by blight and sun scald, while but little is left 

 of the old orchard of American varieties. After a careful scrutiny of the 

 trees, I would name following varieties as appearing in hardiness of the 

 tree and fruitfulness the most promising, viz: Hibernal, Grass Green, 

 Repka, Romenska, Zuzoff, Longfleld, Juicy White, Borsdorf, Gettman, 

 Charlamoff, Beautiful Arcade, Red Wine, Red Queen, Charlotenthaler, 



