124 ANNUAL REPORT. 



white, — very much like Mr. Gideon's Excelsior; but it is of fine 

 flavor. We will endeavor to have this seedling on exhibition 

 another year. We will have a sample of the wood and a his- 

 tory of the tree as near as we can get it. On the twentieth 

 of September the apple was still quite hard; it is evidently a late 

 keeping apple and is of fine quality. I have tasted the Brett 

 seedling and consider it very fine. One thing that struck me 

 very favorably was the fact that it bore in about seven years from 

 the seed, an evidence that it is an early bearer. I think we are 

 on the right track for success in propagating from Minnesota 

 fruit. I think this Brett seedling has something of the charac- 

 teristics, both in the tree and the fruit, of the parent tree, it 

 being supposed to have been from either the Talman Sweet or 

 Golden Russet. Take the longest keeper of the Brett seedlings 

 and you will find the skin very much like the Golden Russet, 

 and I have no doubt it will be very much liked. I believe one 

 of them is marked down the side the same way the Talman Sweet 

 always is. The Brett seedling is valuable stock to propagate 

 from. 



Mr. Sias. I like Mr. Smith's remarks on seedlings, but I 

 would like to say just a word about the Brett seedling that we 

 had in competition with some others. Those same samples, after 

 being carried twenty miles on a wagon to the Southern Minne- 

 sota fair and exhibited there for two weeks, were taken to the 

 State fair, and were handled by everybody, and still they took 

 the first premium as the best collection of seedlings. We did 

 not intend to place them in competition with anything after that 

 as they were too nearly used up; but I boxed them up and sent 

 them with some other things to my friend Pearce. We sent them 

 because we had no other samples, and not to be placed in com- 

 petition with anything else. We hadn't time to get new samples. 

 The original tree had about two bushels of fruit. The tree must 

 be some eleven or twelve years old. 



Mr. Elliot. Mr. President, I have a sample of a seedling raised 

 by George Woolsey, of Minneapolis township, raised from seed 

 of the Wealthy. Mr. Woolsey is away this winter and he left 

 these specimens with Mr. Gilpatrick to be brought to this meet- 

 ing. These seedlings bore fruit five years from the planting. 

 The tree itself seems to be as hardy as the oak. They are situated 

 where they get the heat of summer and the cold blasts of winter. 

 The tendency to bearing early shows the same propensity as the 

 Wealthy. What the quality is I cannot say. I merely bring 



