THE NEED OF FRUIT-BREEDING. 169 



best plant material with which to produce the crops of grain, 

 fruit and vegetables which are to maintain our agriculture and 

 all of those' other things which rest upon the foundation of our 

 agriculture. 



To be of greatest benefit to this region, the work must be 

 done in this region. 



One matter of importance, as I see it, and one reason why 

 the work which you are doing is significant, is this : that the 

 plant materials and particularly the fruit materials which you 

 need to use here must be largely developed here ; or if they are 

 brought in from other regions they must be thoroughly tested 

 here, for the purpose of showing to what extent they are adapted 

 to this environment. Many varieties which are valuable and 

 excellent in other countries or in other parts of this country can- 

 not do well under our climatic conditions. Our best fruits in the 

 future will be originated here. 



Illustrating this point I wish to call your attention to the 

 apple list for Minnesota and adjoining territory. I took the 

 trouble just a few weeks ago to send out some circular letters of 

 inquiry in the Mississippi Valley. I started out with the idea 

 of including the territory from Lake Michigan to the Missouri 

 River, but I didn't get the responses from Wisconsin that I 

 desired. However, the responses which I did get represent, I 

 think, pretty well the territory from Dubuque, Iowa, up the river 

 to Minneapolis and then westward to the Missouri River. I 

 took a few representative nurserymen in that region and asked 

 them to give me a list of the kinds of trees that they have been 

 propagating for the past five years, which in a general way, I 

 take it, means the kind that people here are planting most. 

 Possibly some of the kinds which show up now. in small numbers 

 may later develop to greater importance. Doubtless newer kinds 

 have not yet come to their full recognition. 



Imagine, if you can, the apple trees in this entire region 

 which have been planted during the last five years combined into 

 one orchard a thousand miles long. The reports from these 

 nurserymen as to what they have been propagating indicate that 

 in this thousand miles of apple orchard the varieties would stand 

 about as follows : 



220 miles of Wealthy; 118 miles, Duchess of Oldenburg; 

 117 miles, Northwestern Greening; 93 miles, Patten Greening; 

 69 miles, Hibernal; 40 miles, Okabena; 39 miles, Malinda; 35 



