THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
i6i 
ASA D. BARNES. 
Asa D. Barnes was born on September 5, 1852, in a log 
house near the town of Leroy, in Dodge county, entered 
from the government by his parents, Horace and Phoebe 
Barnes, in the fall of 1846. This worthy couple emigrated 
from Onondaga county. New York, and were among the 
earliest of the settlers of that section of the state who 
braved the hardships of a pioneer life. Their riches con¬ 
sisted of strong hearts, good constitutions, unswerving 
fidelity to each other and good, old-fashioned Scotch and 
Irish blood. Both these worthy pioneers are yet living, 
enjoying a degree of health unusual for people of their 
age, in their comfortable home seven miles from the old 
homestead ; with six married sons and their families around 
them, and three daughters. 
A. D. Barnes is the second of 
eleven children, all born in 
the same house and brought 
up on the same farm. He 
acquired the limited educa¬ 
tion afforded by irregular 
attendance at a small public 
school, \yhen between the 
ages of eight and sixteen 
years. Before he was twelve 
years of age he was an en¬ 
thusiastic horticulturist, evi¬ 
dently born one, having 
planted, trimmed, budded 
and grafted many varieties of 
fruits, and had at that age a 
complete nursery in the gar¬ 
den. His delight was in the 
planting of fruit trees, and at 
the age of twenty he was an 
expert in planting and prun¬ 
ing. At the age of twenty- 
one he followed the example 
of his parents and started out 
for the frontier, locating a 
homestead on January i, 
1874, in Filmore county, 
Nebraska. He took an in- ASA D. 
ventory of his possessions that day and found them to 
consist of a good constitution, a determined will and ten 
dollars in cash. He held down his claim the first year in 
a dug-out, a cellar in the side of a hill with door and win¬ 
dow ; the second year in a sod house ; the third in a small 
frame shanty. The fourth year he built a comfortable 
house, and on September 30, 1877 married the district 
school ma’am, Miss Susan Wheeler. The day after the 
marriage his wife went to the school room and he to the 
plow. He was identified with many public enterprises in 
the new settlement, planting the first fruit trees in the 
vicinity, breaking up and improving three farms, and 
planting thousands of trees on that vast prairie. He 
planted the first nursery in that country and lost the en¬ 
tire stock by drouth. Discouraged, he traded his farm 
in Nebraska for a farm near Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, 
farmed it two years, and then returned to his first love, 
the nursery and fruit business, which, by the way, he 
should never have left. 
In the spring of 1887 Mr. Barnes started the now fam¬ 
ous Waupaca Arctic Nursery and Fruit Farm. This fruit 
farm constitutes a plat of sixty-five acres, partly inside and 
partly outside the city limits, half of which is planted in 
nursery stock ; the remainder is in orchard. In this orchard 
grew the world’s Fair premium apples. Mr. Barnes has 
nearly nine hundred acres of land and employs from ten 
to forty people. 
Besides an orchard of 1,200 apple trees, Mr. Barnes has 
one thousand other trees, in¬ 
cluding many pear and plum 
trees, also a splendid vine¬ 
yard, which contains the 
Premium seedling grape; 
several acres of small fruits, 
and also 50,000 nursery trees 
on his home farm. This year 
he grafted over 40,000 apple 
grafts, many of which are 
new, hardy Northern Wis¬ 
consin seedlings. The key 
to his success lies in the fact 
that he devotes attention to 
acclimation and judicious 
cultivation. He has had to 
face many difficulties, dry 
seasons, with rough, stony 
country, new land, long, cold 
winters, with temperature 
at times as low as 46 degrees 
below zero. He should feel 
proud of his success. 
Mr. Barnes is well known 
in the West as a lecturer on 
horticultural topics. 
The State Board of Horti- 
BARNES. culture estimates that the 
orchard area in California has been increased the present 
season by 35, COO acres planted to various kinds of fruit. 
When the potato is grafted on the tomato, which can be 
done by reason of the close relationship between the two 
plants, the potato roots continue to produce potatoes, 
while the tomato grafted on the potato stalk continues to 
produce tomatoes, says Meehan s Monthly. This is con¬ 
sidered in some of the agricultural papers as remarkable, 
that one plant should produce two different kinds of pro¬ 
ducts ; but it is no more remarkable than all other ex¬ 
periences in grafting. A pear may be grafted on the 
quince, but the roots are still quince roots, although pears 
come from the grafted portion. 
