150 ANNUAL REPORT. 



would come to perfection in the valleys and prove to be our choisest 

 apples; and there are others the taste of which is so bitter that we 

 couldn't hardly get our pigs to eat them. Perhaps those will grow 

 upon the most arid of our hills. It would be useless to raise great 

 quantities of these Russian apples that are almost worthless, but I 

 have a good opinion of some of them. I believe we ought to avail 

 ourselves of these Russian fruits, but ought to move a little slow, and 

 when we purchase, instead of buying at Rochester, N. Y., and trom 

 Ohio nurseries claiming to have the new varieties, that we should try 

 to get them from nurserymen that we know have them. Mr. Wilson, 

 of Iowa, has some; Mr. Gibb brought some into Canada. We know Mr. 

 Tuttle has them. But we don't know that we get a "Siberian crab" 

 from the nurseries of southern Illinois and Ohio. Their agents are 

 bringing up to Minnesota trees that they tell us are "new Russians," 

 "the best thing ever was," and are selling them at a dollar apiece, 

 when they probably bought them at home for ten cents apiece. I hope 

 the farmers will try and get some of the very best of these Russians, 

 and that they will, when they have planted them and grown fruit, 

 raise seedlings from these, and from these seedlings take the best and 

 raise seedlings again, and if we continue doing that we will turn the 

 Russians into full-blooded Minnesotians. We will adopt their fruits 

 as we have their citizens, (for there is none of us but what have come 

 from a foreign race) and in that way I am confident that we shall pro- 

 duce the best fruit that can be grown. We have the elements in our 

 soil and atmosphere to perfect the fruit; we will take their hardiness 

 in the tree and we can get the American flavor into it in time. 



Mr. Tuttle. I wish to say just a single word. It seems that there 

 is a sort of a universal sentiment, but a wrong one, that the Russian 

 apples are all poor. I can mention varieties among them that will 

 rank with our best American apples. Take the Anisettes, the Fameuse, 

 the Golden White and others; they are good in quality. I never ex- 

 pected at first that we could get half a dozen, or as many as ten va- 

 rieties that would fill the bill, but we have got them. I don't claim 

 that all these Russian apples are of first quality, but I do claim, that 

 take them together, they are of good quality. 



The following paper was then read : 



