STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCiETY. 273 



are very interesting, because they 2)rove that there are long keepers 

 among the Russians, which many are slow to believe. 



And now I come to Minnesota's one grand contribution to our 

 stock of iron-clad apples, the noble and glorious Wealthy. With 

 me it grows to perfection, both trees and fruit, the latter running 

 fully as large as Baldwins, handsomer, better for dessert, and keep- 

 ing just as well side by side in the same cellar. I have now 400 

 bearing trees, and I just love to take the croakers who have been 

 telling me so long — '' You can't make apples pay in this cold 

 country" — right in amongst them the last of September, and see 

 'em ''give it up." There is a seedling of the Fameuse from Canada, 

 the Mcintosh Red, which for several years 1 have thought might 

 bo a rival to the Wealthy. In quality it leaves nothing to be 

 desired, and it keeps pretty nearly as well, but like its parent it 

 spots and cracks, and as a market apple for profit the Wealthy 

 sails right round it without any trouble at all. On deep rich soils 

 like those of the St. Lawrence river banks, where alone I have seen 

 Famuese and St. Lawrence grow in perfection, the Mcintosh, I 

 have no doubt, will be "just splendid." I have seen specimens of 

 it as big as a pint bowl, that were everything one could ask for. 

 The tree is somewhat hardier than Fameuse. Among the native 

 seedlings of this vicinity I have found two that are valuable. One, 

 the Magog Red Streak, is rather supplanted by the Wealthy, yet 

 not altogether, since it is a choice pie apple as well as a good eating 

 apple. The tree seems perfectly hardy, the shoots never winter- 

 killing, but it IS somewhat subject to bark blight at the junction 

 of the limbs, thus making some of the trees unsound. It bears 

 not young but abundantly, the fruit being medium to large, more 

 or less ribbed, yellow, with read streaks on the sunny side. Keeps 

 well, but rather unevenly. 



My second nativ^e, Scott's Winter, I like better and better as I 

 have longer experience with it. The tree is iron-clad, free from 

 defects, except that it is subject to bark-splitting at the ground 

 while young. Its growth is vigorous, and it begins bearing as 

 early and bears as much as the Wealthy. In size it is a good 

 medium; the fruit is roundish oblate, dull yellow, heavily striped 

 and often covered with dark red. It keeps from two to three 

 months longer than the Wealthy, or until the middle of June with 

 me. It does not begin to soften much until April, when it 

 becomes very good, a brisk, spicy acid, mellowing to sub-acid in 

 May. It is preferable to and more salable 41ian the smaller rus- 

 sets, besides being hardier. I have about 300 trees of this variety. 

 18 



