68 ANNUAL REPORT. 
have practiced these methods of improving fruits that the male exercises the 
stronger influence in the formation of the fnture plant. Mr. Peffer, of 
Pewaukee, says we shouid look to the female for hardiness, size of fruit, and , 
shape of tree, and the male for earliness or lateness, flavor, color, and pro- 
ductiveness. At the present time there is considerable interest felt in the 
subject, and most wonderful results have followed the labors of Allen, 
Arnold, Rogers, and Rickets, in hybridizing some varieties of our native 
grapes with the foreign. The tree fruits are not so difficult to operate upon, 
and it is well worth our while to encourage experiments with our native 
and the domestic plum, and the apple and Siberian crab or some of its 
descendants. Necessity is often a blessing in that it leads to invention. 
May our necessity lead us to fortune by hastening the time when Minnesota 
fruits shall be her glory. 
J. S. HARRIS. 
As closely connected with the foregoing subject, Mr. Harris 
read also the following, on 
HYBRID APPLES. 
Many of our Western nurserymen are describing and offering for sale a. 
number of small varieties of apples under the name of hybrids, some of them 
seedlings of Siberians and others of unknown origin. In my opinion this 
practice is unwarranted, and will tend only to evil and should not be sanc- 
tioned by this society. It tends to deceive the farmers who suppose the 
term implies something better than either Siberians or apples; and if some 
of them should after sufficient trial prove to be worthy of being retained in 
our fruit lists, there will arise confusion in cataloguing and getting them in 
the lists where they belong. Every person who originates a new variety of 
fruit of value should be required to make a written statement describing the 
fruit and its origin, probable hardiness, age, when it commenced bearing, 
soil upon which it has been grown, &c., which statement should be filed 
with the secretary of this society before it can be placed upon any of our 
lists and recommended for trial. If they are true descendants of the Sibe- 
rians they should be named as such, while if they are seedlings of the com- 
mon apple, degenerated in quality and dwarfed in size, but have the merit 
of extreme hardiness, let them go upon trial as such; then, when some 
enterprising horticulturist succeeds is producing a set of true hybrids, they 
can be presented to the public in their proper plaee and stand or fall on their 
own merits. It cannot be proved that a single one of these Siberian seed- 
lings are hybrids, and it is fortunate that it is so, for if a hybrid between 
the Siberian and the apple is no better than these there would be but little 
encouragement for attempting to improve our apples inthis manner. But 
there is strong circumstantial evidence that they are not hybrids and that 
some of them are very poor descendants of the apple. ‘There is a tradition 
in the southern part of the State that many years ago an emigrant crossed 
the river at La Crosse late in November, and had with him a bushel of Sibe- 
rian crabs, and, that when he arrived at Hesper, Lowa, he found them frozen 
solid, and considering them worthless threw them out, and that some 
one picked them up and planted them, and the result was a number of 
varieties of hybrids, the Gen. Grant being one of them. They could not 
