the black haw and thorn apple, that are as yet almost
unnoticed.

[Illustration: Group of Douglas fir on the mountainside. Thirteen trees
in a space of only two square rods. None less than two feet in
diameter.]

One of the principal charms about the great country traversed by the
Yellowstone Trail is its newness and freshness. Millions of acres just
as the Indian, the buffalo and the coyote left them--broad stretches as
far as eye can reach without a sign of human habitation. But this is
fast passing away. Out among the sage brush in land as poor and
desert-like as could well be imagined, homes are being mapped out by the
thousand, and crops of grain were grown this year that rival the best
yield in any of the older states. The time is close at hand when the
main highways will be built up and made so hard and smooth that two
hundred and fifty miles will be made as easily as our average runs of
one hundred and fifty. The way will be safer and speedier, but it will
lack some of the spice of adventure, and it will be harder to realize
the simple life about the camp fire that now seems to harmonize so well
with the wildness of the plains.

The Minnesota Orchard.

A QUESTION AND ANSWER EXERCISE LED BY J. P. ANDREWS, NURSERYMAN,
FARIBAULT.

Mr. Andrews: This is a very important subject. We have been talking
about it a long, long time, and we have advanced a little, ought to have
advanced quite a little more, and this exercise is along the road of
improvement in that line. Anything that is bothering us, anything that
is in the way of our success with the apple orchard, ask what questions
you can, not that I can answer them all, but there are some good
orchardists around here that I know I can call on, in case I can not. In
this exercise the questions come first, and it is for you fellows to
start the ball rolling.

There is one thing we are lacking, that is winter apples. We have enough
of fall apples, seems to me, so we can get along very well, but we are
looking for something a little better quality than Malinda and that will
keep somewhere near as long. All these new seedlings that have been
introduced in the past and big premiums offered, they seem to have
stopped right there and we are not getting the benefit of but one or
two. If they had been adapted to the north, as they should have been, we
undoubtedly could have had several good varieties of apples that we
could recommend for planting a considerable