orticultural meeting in Des Moines, December last, was
exhibited one hundred varieties of seedlings and a large number of
those, to my judgment, were good keepers and fine looking apples.
Hundreds and hundreds of varieties of apples have been imported from
Russia, and I for one have tested fifty or sixty of those Russian
varieties, but at the state meeting, where I exhibited seventy-seven
varieties, I was able to show only three Russian varieties, Longfield,
Antinovka and Volga Cross. I think I have reason to ask what would we
have for apples today if there had not been any seedlings raised? Why
does the State of Minnesota offer one thousand dollars for a seedling
apple tree that is as hardy as the Duchess with fruit as good as the
Wealthy and that keeps as well as the Malinda? Because to get such a
variety it must come from seed.

Planting for Color Effects in the Garden.

MRS. H. B. TILLOTSON, MINNEAPOLIS.

The most attractive flower bed in my garden this year has been the one
planted for a blue and white effect. From earliest spring, soon after
the snow had gone, until now, October 4th, there has been something
interesting and beautiful blooming there.

In the middle of the summer it was one tangled mass of lilies,
delphinium, phlox and gypsophila, their perfume filling the whole
garden. As the lilies faded and the delphinium grew old and went to
seed, the old stalks were cut away. The phlox and delphinium bloomed
again in a little while, and in September the candidum lilies began to
come through the ground, getting ready for next year.

The bed is three feet wide by thirty long, and was covered last winter
with loose straw and leaves, with a few cornstalks to hold them in
place. Early in April this was raked off and the edges of the bed made
straight, for the grass always grows in a little each year. The warm
sunshine soon brought out the scilla and crocus, almost carpeting the
whole bed. One would not think of the other things hiding under their
leaves.

The forget-me-nots began to look green along the edge, and up through
the fading crocus and scilla came a few straggling grape hyacinths, blue
and white, and one lonely plant of the Virginia cowslip
(Mertensia)--more could have been used with good effect, for they too
disappear after awhile.

The Virginia cowslip staid in bloom until the forget-me-nots were a
mass of blossoms, and the blue Darwin tulips (pink, really, with a blue
spot in the bottom