342 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
A TRIP THROUGH THE ORCHARDS OF MINNESOTA. 
MADE BY PROF. S. B. GREEN AND CLARENCE WEDGE 
IN AUGUST, 1895. 
Mr. Wedge and I have been making a short trip through the 
orchards of the state with the purpose of preparing a report on their 
condition, to be given at the winter meeting of our horticultural 
society next winter. We have in mind further journeyings of a like 
nature before the growing season ends. 
Our worthy secretary, however, has asked me to write up a sort of 
preliminary report of our trip which, without giving away all our 
“thunder,” shall show something of the condition in which we 
found things. We made the trip largely by railroad but carried our 
bicycles with us to help out, and found them of very great assistance. 
We went in light marching order, dressed in sweaters, but neither of 
us seems to be quite up to the point of wearing “bloomers,” as the 
boys call short pants. 
We started from Minneapolis on Monday noon for Excelsior, 
where we visited Peter M. Gideon and looked over his seedling 
apples with much interest. Mr. Gideon says it is “right smart hard” 
to tell the difference between the Wealthy and Peter apples, but 
that the Peter keeps better than Wealthy. From there we pushed 
on to Waconia. A severe rain had preceded us which made the 
roads almost impassable for bicycles and delayed us so long that it 
was nearly supper time when we reached Mr. Andrew Peterson’s 
place. It was our intention to have gotten back to Excelsior the 
same night, but the heavy roads and threatening rain made this out 
of the question. Mr. P. kindly put us up for the night. Among 
some of the object lessons here are his Lieby apple trees, which are 
very large, spreading fully thirty feet, with a trunk circumference 
of thirty inches, but bearing no fruit this year. They have, however, 
been very productive, and seemed good for many more years of ser- 
vice. The Anisim apples, formerly called Good Pheasant, we found 
bearing heavily, though a few of the trees seemed to be root injured. 
Now “stick a pin right here” and remember that—I think, without 
exception—whenever on this trip we found trees under the name of 
Hibernal or Lieby, they looked well and generally bore some fruit, 
and the owners believed in them. Our society makes no mistake in 
recommending it as the hardiest of the well tried varieties. 
Among other varieties represented that showed vigor and fruit- 
fulness were Cross, Wolf, Patten’s Greening, White Pigeon and 
Minnesota crab. Charlamof was not bearing, but the trees appeared 
far hardier than the Duchess. Mr. Peterson’s place is admirably 
kept and a great many points of interest were noted. 
Tuesday A. M. we bicycled it to Victoria and took the train for Min- 
neapolis, arriving there about 9 o’clock. As there were no trains out 
of town in directions in which we wanted yo, we went on bicycles to 
Farmington, where we visited Mr. Parker, who is located on the 
prairie about two miles from town. Here we found Hibernal heavily 
loaded with fruit and the tree perfect, and the Whitney, Tetofsky and 
Duchess apples and Minnesota and Strawberry crabs doing well. He 
