remains to
be seen whether they will stand up under the next test winter. They are
certainly satisfactory in size, color, quality and keeping capacity.

The greatest question now presents itself in planting apple seed. What
variety shall I choose? Some pedigrees may be like a blind alley, they
will lead us nowhere. The commercial apples of the East and of the
Pacific Coast are the survivors of millions of apple seedlings raised
by immigrants from Western Europe during the past three centuries. They
survived because they were the best. From time to time very good
varieties are super-ceded by new ones that appear. From the ashes of
millions of seedlings will arise, Phoenix-like, the creations that will
dominate our future prairie pomology. Here in the Northwest thousands of
farmers have already determined to a considerable extent what we may
expect from planting the seed of certain standard varieties.

[Illustration: The Waneta plum. A promising variety originated and
introduced by Prof. N. E. Hansen.]

Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa are full of seedlings of the Duchess. Some
of the best are Okabena, Peerless, Patten's Greening, Milwaukee, Dudley,
Pewaukee. A very large amount of Wealthy seed has been planted,
especially in Minnesota. Many of these give promise, but in none do we
appear to have obtained the true winter-keeping capacity. The Wealthy
has given us the Lord's L, Evelyn, Lyman Sweet, Perfect and many more,
observed at Minnesota state fairs from time to time. The Malinda has
given us in the Perkins' seedlings a number of promising new varieties
that evidently are true winter keepers. The fact that they appear hardy
may come from the fact that the original orchard had hardy varieties,
like the Duchess, standing near the Malinda. From the experience with
these three varieties I would like to draw the conclusion that in order
to get winter apples we should save the seed of winter apples, but it
would not be safe to draw this conclusion without further experiments.
There is an immense number of Ben Davis seedlings in Missouri and
adjoining states, but none appear to have come into extensive commercial
notice except the Black Ben Davis and Gano. But as near as I can learn
we cannot obtain real hardiness from this line of descent, unless the
Ben Davis in the mother orchard is standing near varieties like the
Duchess.

The seed of standard winter apples top-grafted on hardy stocks like
Hibernal should be carefully