64 ANNUAL REPORT. 
ment is to be something as follows: The ground is to be quite closely 
planted with seedlings of the Siberian and Wealthy apple for hardiness, 
alternated with the best and hardiest apples for long keeping qualities. The 
theory is that when these trees produce fruit the seeds will have become 
fertilized from the pollen of the apple, and that their progeny will be hybrids. 
Of course this is only theory. (I mean the hybrid part.) The most prom- 
ising of this progeny is to be retained and cultivated until it produces fruit, 
and the seeds again planted, and so on, continued as long as land can be 
found to plant them on, or until the desired varicties are produced. 
Ground for Hope. 
The object is good and the method so feasible that there is a reasonable 
prospect that our Pomology will be greatly improved, even if no hybrids are 
produced. In most species of cultivated plants there exists a tendency to 
variation or the formation of varieties, and this tendency is very marked in 
the Pyrus and Prune families. 
History and tradition tell us that the original parent of the Golden Drop 
Gages and other domestic plums is the worthless Sloe or Beach plum; that 
a steady cultivation of the sour crab of Europe for centuries has given us 
the Baldwins, Pippins and a thousand other delicious varieties of the apple; 
and that all our melting and sugary pears are the offspring of a wild variety 
so acrid that no use could be made of it, and that birds and animals would 
not molest it. And within the memory of some of us who are here assem- 
bled, the little Siberian crab has given us scores of seedling varieties much 
ameliorated in flavor. Some of them increased in size until they rival the 
popular Fameuse or Snow apple, and their season has been extended from 
September to December, and it does not require much of a fanatic to proph- 
esy that this species will eventually give us all that can be desired in the 
line of apples. The time may appear to us slow in coming if we have to 
depend entirely upon the experiments conducted by one individual, and that 
in the most primitive manner, for every flower of the apple is a perfect one, 
that is, the organs of male and female exist in each, and the marked differ- 
ence in the time of coming into blossom between early and late varieties, 
and between the apple and crab, make it almost certain that they will fer- 
tilize themselves, and that there will be no cross between them; but, as 
before stated, the Siberians are showing a wonderful propensity for making 
new varieties, and the season of blooming in the newer varieties is coming 
nearer to that of the Pyrus Malus, thus making it only a question of time 
when the bees and the bugs will so mix the two species that the coming 
horticulturist must needs be an expert to locate them. But while this is 
being brought about, every fruit grower should} remember that the desired 
varieties are yet to be originated, tested and propagated in quantities sufli- 
cient to meet our wants, and perhaps will be sold at prices that will place 
them beyond the reach of the masses, and from eight to twelve years must 
transpire before we can hope for anything from that source. My friends, 
can we afford to wait? I think not. I think it behooves every horticulturist 
in Minnesota and the great Northwest to enter immediately upon the fleld 
which is open before us and engage in the laudable work of improving 
our native fruits and originating new varieties of the domesticated adapted 
to growing in the Northwest. 
