58 TENTH BIENNIAL REPORT 



tempted except passibly for local market, that is, for short shipments 

 direct from the grower to the consumer or the merchant. 



For planting throughout the eastern part of the state I would 

 limit the apples to three varieties; the Yellow Transparent, Duchess 

 and Wealthy, with some Gano, locally known as Yellowstone Pippin, 

 in the district around Billings. 



A good list of crabs may be grown, the Transcendent standing at 

 the head, and I think it may now safely be planted in a small way 

 since the blight seems to have died out ; then follows the White Arctic, 

 Florence, Whitney and Excelsior, the latter being an excellent Sep- 

 tember eating apple although listed as a crab. 



The only pear I feel like recommending for trial or limited 

 planting is the Flemish Beauty. They were doing fairly well here 

 in the Clark's Fork valley on some farms until cleaned out by the 

 fire blight. 



Plums and cherries seem better adapted to our conditions than 

 any tree fruit, but for success the right varieties must be selected. 

 Twenty-one years ago Joseph Eichhorne and William Haj^es, the 

 pioneer fruit growers of Miles City, tested about fifty varieties of 

 plums and they told me the Forest Garden and De Soto were the best, 

 therefore, when planting my own orchard I used them and have 

 always advised others to do the same, never having any reason to 

 change my opinion ; but there should be added a few of Prof. Hansen's 

 new plums. I have seen them bearing a very high class fruit at 

 Fairview in the northeastern part of the state on the Dakota line. 



Cherries must be limited to the sour varieties. They seem to 

 stand and fruit may be expected about half the seasons in this part 

 of the state, the fruit buds winter killing the rest of the time. Great 

 Falls and Miles City should probably be the northern and eastern 

 limits for planting them because of bud' killing. 



There are two sorts, however, which can be grown in the balance 

 of the state, the Rocky ^lountain Dwarf cherry, which is a low bush 

 bearing a great quantity of large fruit of a wild flavor, usually bear- 

 ing the next year after planting; and the Compass cherry, which was 

 produced by crossing the Rocky Mountain cherry with a plum. It is 

 a small tree and ripens a fruit in the fall and late summer which 

 might almast be called a plum as it resembles the plums as much as 

 the cherries. 



