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ORCHARDS.. 259 
ORCHARDING IN MINNESOTA. 
WM. SOMERVILLE, VIOLA. 
Our first experience was with the varieties grown in the Eastern states. 
They were acclimated to a damp atmosphere, and had a longer period 
from the first frosts which come in the fall until winter, giving the wood 
more time to ripen and get ready for winter. The change was too great 
to be made all at once to such a climate as we have in Minnesota with 
its dry atmosphere, hot summers, beautiful falls, and winter setting in 
frequently without much notice in the way of frosts. with the trees still 
growing and the wood not ripened. They would frost-bite the same as a 
corn stalk, the sap turning acid, and this circulating through the trunk 
of the tree would cause black-heart, and the tree would die. 
Such winters as we had in 1884 and ’85, with the cold wind from the 
north for three or four weeks in succession, the thermometer indicating 
from thirty to ferty degrees below zero, froze to death all trees that had 
not been accustomed to such severe tests for generations past. I had a 
small nursery at that time, perhaps 10,000 trees, but they were all killed 
to the ground and cousigned to the brush pile, except a few of the Rus- 
sian varieties that were but slightly injured and some of them not at all, 
and to-day are in the orchard bearing fruit. The trees that I consigned 
to the brush pile were those, the scions for which I had cut from the best 
seedlings I could find that had stood the test for fifteen or twenty years. 
Some of the trees I cut scions from are yet living and bearing fruit, while all 
the young trees have perished. This proves to me that we cannot depend 
on any one tree of any of our American kinds as a parent to give us the 
fruit and hardiness of tree that we want. It requires more than one gen- 
eration of trees to acclimate them to our climate, soil, and season. Take 
the seeds of Duchess and plant them, and if hybridized or crossed by a 
crab or hybrid, it lowers the standard and reduces the size. If crossed by 
any of our common apples of the American kind to retain their size, it 
loses hardiness of tree, which is very essential. As we may yet have Min- 
nesota winters for years and years, the seedling business has been agi- 
tated by nurserymen and others, and what have we got to show for the 
trouble taken to get them? ‘True, we have the Wealthy and a few other 
seedlings. The Wealthy isa freak of nature, as understand. Mr. Gideon 
says it was grown from the seed of a Siberian crab, and yet it is not as 
hardy as we would like it. There are other individual seedling trees 
recommended very highly, but we know very little about them, 
until the young trees come into bearing over the state, and we have had 
atest winter. Then it will prove the fact that one generation of trees is not 
sufficient to acclimate them to our climate, no more than to expect a crop 
of corn the first season from Illinois seed. Then where are we to expect 
our apples for Minnesota? For the present, any person seeing the amount 
of fruit on exhibition at our state fairs, can readily see where our ap- 
ples are to come from. Take away the new Russians and truly the ex- 
hibit of seedlings would make but a poor showing at the state fair, 
but with over 150 varieties of new Russian apples, our exhibit of fruit 
