ORCHARDS OF MINNESOTA. 343 
also has a large number of the best Russian varieties, in a new 
orchard, that are looking well. Mr. Parker has a very pleasant home 
and his place shows that both he and his wife love horticultural 
affairs. 
Tuesday night we went to Lake City, where we arrived at 10:30. 
Spent the night with the worthy president of our society and the 
next day visited his extensive orchards and nursery. We found the 
Anisim apple, which was here as usual a tardy bearer, loaded almost 
to the ground with nice fruit, and the Hibernal sound and fruiting 
heavily. The Duchess fruit had all been picked, but had evidently 
been a heavy crop, as were many crabs, notably one of the Pickett’s 
seedlings and the Early Strawberry. Here were, probably, fifty young 
trees of the Okabena bearing heavily, and the fruit was very perfect. 
In fact, all the fruit at this place was fair and quite free from blem- 
ishes. 
Mr. Underwood has an orchard high up on the north side of a 
steep bluff, part of which is grown on “the forest orchard plan,” by 
cutting off the original tree growth, planting the apple trees and 
mulching without further cultivation. Part of the land is so steep 
as almost to preclude cultivation. The trees here looked well, and 
it was, in our opinion, a most favorable place for an orchard. The 
dwarf savin juniper (Juniperus Sabina) is grown in the nursery 
here in large quantities and is a very desirable plant for a low ever- 
green windbreak. It is extremely hardy and bears close pruning 
well. 
Late Wednesday afternoon we spent several hours at Minnesota 
City looking over Mr. O. M. Lord’s place, which is very prettily situ- | 
ated in the valley near the railroad station. Mr. Lord had two or 
three varieties of peaches fruiting well, and we had the pleasure of 
testing them. The Japan plum called Ogon looked better than we 
expected and has produced fruit, but it is evidently too far north for 
profitable culture. Mr. Lord’s plums were very excellent. He thinks 
the Rollingstone the finest American plum. He also says of other 
plums that Cottrel is a magnificent fruit, and that the Wyant does 
very well, but he thinks Iowa parties have lauded it too highly. The 
Cheney plum, he says, is one of his best but is a little soft for ship- 
ping. Comfort plum was bearing a heavy crop of large, fair fruit. 
Mr. Lord has had a very excellent crop of strawberries this season, 
and his new bed looks very well. Hehas many varieties. 
We next visited Mr. J. S. Harris’ home at La Crescent, which is 
picturesquely situated high up on one of the bluffs, surrounded by 
fruit and ornamental trees in great variety. Mr. Harris has a great 
variety of fruit plants and is making a careful trial of all the prom- 
ising varieties he can get hold of. He has many large trees but. 
also, an excellent young orchard containing very many varieties. 
Here we saw two Flemish Beauty pear trees bearing about a bushel 
of fair pears each, and the trees were very healthy. The largest 
Duchess tree we have seen is here located and will spread fully 
thirty feet. Dartt’s Hybrid apple was heavily loaded. Many varie- 
ties of the old apple list, such as Haas and Utter, were doing very 
well. The Avista, originated by A. J. Philips, we found blighting 
