EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 141 
BLIGHT—EXCESSIVE VITALITY—TREE CHOLERA. 
An orchard cannot do well for any considerable length of time unless it 
is kept well manured. Manure produces, or at least induces, blight. 
Blight, though contagious, does not affect all varieties alike, some being 
so nearly free from it, even when subjected to high culture and exposed 
to other blighted trees, that they receive little injury, whilst others seem 
predisposed to blight to such an extent as to be of no value whatever. 
There are all gradations between these two extremes. 
The Russians are said to be great blighters; so also are seedling varie- 
ties, especially those of crab origin, and Mr. Gideon thinks we will find no 
apple hardy enough for Minnesota, unless there is in it an infusion of the 
crab. I think Mr. Gideon is right, but this crab infusion has been com- 
ing without our knowledge or consent. Every apple seedling is a cross; 
and as crab apples abound everywhere in Minnesota, and as bees are 
always busy carrying pollen in its season, we cannot escape the crab in- 
fusion. We may try hand pollenization, but here heredity may step 
in and upset our calculation. One or both parents may have been in- 
fused. The two races are mixed, and we could not separate them if we 
would, and we would not if we could, for herein is our road to success. 
We may conclude, therefore, that all our apples are liable to blight. And 
it would seem best that on all our experiment stations blight should be 
encouraged, and that all varieties showing strong tendencies in that 
direction should be consigned to the brush pile. An exception should be 
made in favor of such varieties as the Wealthy, which, though liable to 
blight, approaches perfection in all other respects except hardiness. Such 
trees should be manured but lightly in orchard if stable manure is used 
and may be treated with remedial applications when such applications 
become known. 
The following varieties have been seriously injufed by blight the past 
season, and most of them will be destroyed together with many unnamed 
seedlings: 
fussians.—Antonovka, Lowland Raspberry, Yellow Anis, Red Trans- 
parent, Orel III, Anisouka, Thaler. 
Seedlings—London Pippin, Hutchinsons Sweet, Wisconsin Chief, 
Brier’s Sweet, Tubbs Ironclad, Dartts Hyb. Seed. No. 4, General Grant, 
Meneray, Barrs Siberian, Wealthy, Beechs Sweet, Yellow Transcendent, 
Dartts Porch, Lake Winter, Homestead, Arnolds Winter, Quaker 
Beauty, Red Bark Crab. 
The Apple Question.—Since the disasters of 1884-5, our society seems to 
have turned away from the apple question to more salubrious fields, just 
as the boy in school sometimes turns with disgust from the problem he 
cannot solve. The revision of our fruit list has received but little atten- 
tion, and its discussion has sometimes been dispensed with. There is no 
way by which the merits and demerits of a variety can be so quickly es- 
tablished,and by which the most important questions relating to methods 
can be settled so well,as to bring them before a body of practical orchard- 
ists and experimenters, who know whereof they speak. 
At this time, when nine-tenths of our farmers believe that it is best to 
bring their barrels of apples around through the wheat field or hog pas- 
ture, or by way of the cheese factory or creamery, it would seem most be- 
coming for our society to dispense with enough attractive features to en- 
