THE MINNESOTA 
HORTICULTURIST. 
VOL. 23 APRIL, 1895. NO. 3. 
Z\pples. 
THE FAILURES AND SUCCESSES OF APPLE 
GROWING IN MINNESOTA. 
WILLIAM SOMERVILLE, VIOLA, MINN. 
We have had our failures in days that are past and fear we may 
have them in days to come. Many farmers will not learn from the 
experience of others, but still persist in buying their nursery stock 
from EKastern and Southern nurseries, represented by a set of men 
that know little of our climate,and whose only object is to sell trees. 
He tells of their superior qualities and that they are better than 
others because they are budded or have some other peculiarity that 
makes them superior to any trees in the market, at the same time 
turning over his book leaves, showing all the best and largest apple 
pictures of the country. He tells of their good qualities, of which 
he knows nothing himself, until the farmer forgets that these trees 
are raised under altogether different climatical influence, and that 
they cannot stand the hot summers and cold winters of Minnesota. 
Although they have been warned by the Horticultural Society and 
Farmer’s Institute and almost every leading paper in the state, they 
continue to buy such stock and say, because they do not succeed, 
that apple growing in Minnesota is a failure, forgetting the princi- 
ple, that trees, like corn, must be acclimated to our soil, climate and 
season. This has to be accomplished by seedlings raised in Minne- 
sota or by Russian varieties that have been acclimated to sucha 
climate for generations past. 
Sometimes farmers will get good stockfrom responsible nursery- 
men or their agents, and expose them to the sun and wind during 
the day and at night throw them in the shade to protect their roots. 
The following day they will dig a hole a foot square and the same 
depth,thrusting their roots down into the hole,regardless of the con- 
dition of the ground, and expect atree, and one that will bear fruit. 
Well, the tree does not grow or bear fruit, and the farmer feels that 
the nurseryman has swindled him. Could any other result be ex- 
pected? The sunand wind had dried out their roots; and thrusting 
theminto the hard ground, neither cultivating nor mulching them, 
how could we expect any other results? We have violated nature’s 
