THE MINNESOTA VOL. 27. APRIL, 1899. No. 4. THE MALINDA APPLE. A. K. BUSH, DOVER. As much inquiry comes to me about this apple, I will answer al through the Minnesota Horticulturist. I was fortunate in securing twelve trees of this variety from Mr. Kneeland, of Wabasha county, about twenty-one years ago. These were planted on a steep hill-side which slopes to the east, sheltered on the west with native oaks, on the north with a grove of willows, maples, etc., on the south by a white pine hedge, which also shelters my barns, feeding yards, etc., from the north winds and drifting snows. The location and soil are favorable, the protection ideal. This orchard, when planted, contained about seventy-five trees, including Duchess, Wealthy, Early Harvest and several varieties of crabs. Ten of the Malinda are standing in excellent condition for trees of their age, a larger proportion than of any other variety. These ten are annual bearers-wonderfully productive every other year. Two years ago we picked and measured seventy-five bushels of apples; this year the crop was fully 100 bushels. From one tree, separated by quite a distance from all others, we gathered enough to fill six apple barrels, as many as would stand in an ordinary wagon box. My neighbor, Mr. Wm. Somerville, the venerable horticulturist, who lives three miles west of my farm, reports one crop of twentyfive bushels of Malinda apples grown on one tree which was topworked on a Transcendent stock about thirty years ago. Mr. G. Leitz, a neighbor who joins my farm on the north, has several Malinda trees, from the Jewell Nursery Company, I believe. These are fully as productive and healthy as mine. I might refer to others who are growing this apple near my orchard with success. The tree does much the best top-worked on some hardy, thrifty stock like the Hybernal, Virginia or Peerless. It also comes into bearing much earlier. Mr. Somerville called my attention to a top-worked Malinda which was well loaded with fruit three years from the graft. With us, in Olmstead county, the tree is regarded more hardy and productive than the Wealthy when it comes into bearing, which is always very late on its own stock, say ten to twelve years after planting The fruit will keep through the winter if proper care is used in picking, handling and storing. This I have demonstrated several seasons. Now, about the quality of the fruit. We do not claim it is equal to the Duchess as a cooker or the Wealthy as a dessert apple, but it is superior to much of the southern fruit, which costs about $3.50 per barrel this year-and "out of sight" when compared with no apples. My children and those of our neighborhood are not such critical judges of apples as our fruit committees. When my boys come from the cellar with pockets filled and a choice, red-cheeked Malinda apple in each hand, and I ask them if they are good, they reply, "you are just right, good enough for us." After serving Malinda apples, baked in one of those old fashioned stone bean pots, I ask my company how they like the fruit. "Oh, it is delicious! Where do you get such nice baking apples?" We grow them. I am making no attempt to boom the Malinda, have no stock or fruit to sell. In fact, trees, true to name, are very scarce. I would advise top-working this variety, as well as all other halfhardy sorts, on some hardy stocks you may have in the orchard. We need more home-grown, long-keeping apples on our Minnesota farms. Why not try the Malinda with other promising varieties, like the Repka Malenka, Cross 413, etc. PLANTING THE BLACKCAP RASPBERRY. Owing to the ravages of that dread disease, anthracnose, I have quit growing the blackcap raspberry for market, growing only a few for experimental purposes and, consequently, have little enthusiasm to put into the subject. On the windy prairie it will not do to plant them on any piece of land that we happen to have handy; they must have protection from the winds. I believe it were better not to plant them at all than to put them where the wind has full sweep. First, a piece of land is supposed to be ready in a sheltered locality and marked out in rows one way eight feet apart. If the plants have come from a distance, early planting is best, and from three to four feet in the row I think about right. If cut worms are very thick, I believe the plants should be set still nearer in the row. Care must be taken to have the roots set as deep as possible so the plant will not dry out before growth begins, and always press the earth firmly about the roots, yet leaving only a light covering over the crown. If we are growing our own plants I think it best to defer planting until the plants have made from two to six inches growth; then have the land freshly prepared and take out a shovelful of earth at every place a plant is to be set. Then, dig the plants as they are wanted to be used, taking pains to leave all of the earth possible attached to the roots, and carry them in baskets or otherwise to where they are wanted and set a plant in each of the holes that has been dug. This way the plants may be set deeper, as there is little danger of smothering them, and there is greater certainty of getting a full stand than by the way of planting before growth begins. There are other and, perhaps, better ways of setting the blackcap raspberry, but unless the conditions are very favorable it will not be good policy to plant largely of them. DISCUSSION. Mr. Hartwell (Illinois): I find the gentleman's experience is similar to mine, and yet he gets scared if the anthracnose gets after him once in a while. We are troubled some with anthracnose, but some years we have very little of it. As to setting the plants, I have found it a good practice to make a trench a little deeper than I want to set the plants. Mr. Wheaton: What is the general reason that the blackcap fails to fill up as it should? Mr. Elmer Reeves (Iowa): I think the case is, as has been suggested in one of the papers, the lack of pollenization. Mr. Bunnell: Which are the best varieties? Mr. Hartwell: The Older; the Kansas is a good variety also Prof. Green: Is it not a little soft? Mr. Hartwell: One of my pickers found six quarts on Thursday that had been picked sometime and overlooked; I sent them to market with the rest, and no one could tell the difference. I lost two crops by frost. The Older is the least subject to anthracose. Mr. Wedge: As a profitable market berry, it should be more generally appreciated; it is a berry of good quality and one of the best home berries that can be grown. I have had it on my place for years. Mr. Elmer Reeves is the man who persuaded me to plant the Older. We also have the Gregg, the Nemaha and most of the other blackcaps, but the Older is doing much better than any other variety. For the home market it is excellent. Mr. Reeves: I never feel like apologizing for pushing that rasp berry. I received samples from parties who claimed to have originated that berry, and the point of it was I found I was furnishing them their stock of plants to introduce them. That variety has one weak point, and that is its liability to injury by frost late in the spring. It is the best blackcap for home use I know anything about. For market it is as good as any variety, provided you pick it close. You must pick them oftener and not let them get over-ripe, and they will take better in the market than the Gregg and other varieties, on account of their better quality. I consider it the best and most profitable variety of all our blackcaps. Mr. C. W. Sampson: I would like to ask whether the Older is perfectly hardy? Mr. Reeves: I do not lay any raspberries down. It is the most hardy I know of. Mr. L. R. Moyer: I do not want anybody to get the impression from Mr. Cook's paper that it is not worth while planting raspberries on the prairie. We have better success with raspberries than with any other fruit. The first we have in the spring is the Palmer, then the Souhegan. The Palmer is quite a bit earlier, a week or ten days earlier, than the Gregg or Nemaha, but I do not like the Nemaha as well as the Gregg. It seems to be more woody. I have been very much encouraged with blackcaps. We have given up trying to raise strawberries, but we succeed well with blackcaps. I have grown them for fifteen to twenty years. Mr. Richardson: In our country it seems to do well on all sorts of soil. It responds readily to good care and cultivation and seems to do well on any soil. Mr. Bush: The thought was brought out here that the blackcap was better appreciated in the country than any other variety. It does splendidly on every kind of soil. I have disposed of my crop for the last two or three years right among my neighbors. One of my neighbors has picked my fruit on shares, furnishing his own boxes, and we have never succeeded in raising as many blackcaps as our neighbors wanted. Mr. Bunnell: How does the price compare with the red? Mr. Bush: I get more for them than for the red-fully as much anyway. Mr. Bunnell: I find in the market at St. Paul the price is not as high as for the red ones. Mr. Yahnke: In our market I always get two cents less for the black than for the red, and I do not see how any one can afford to lay down raspberries and come out even. Mr. C. L. Smith: And I do not see how anybody can afford to raise black raspberries and not cover them and come out even. Mr. Philips (Wisconsin): The best black raspberry I have I do not know what it is. I stopped off at Worthington once to see the old Okabena tree. I found Mr. Ludlow, and after looking at the tree I found he had a peculiar black raspberry, a very nice berry. It was in the latter part of June, and he was selling them for twenty-five cents a quart, all he could pick, and I found they were marketing those berries seven days earlier than they were marketing the first ones at Sparta. He was selling them seven days before Thayer commenced selling his first berries. I had him send me a dozen plants. They need no care; they have never been laid down; they grow from the tips, and they always give me a good crop. He had no name for them. Mr. Reeves (Iowa): There is a black raspberry in that country that is native. Mr. C. L. Smith: The best I could find out about that raspberry was that twenty-six or twenty-seven years ago there was a lot of Doolittles planted there; the birds carried the seeds into the grove, and out of those seedlings came that black raspberry. Mr. E. G. E. Reel: I would like to know what it costs to plant an acre of black raspberries. The President: I would say it would cost about forty dollars an acre. Mr. Hartwell (Illinois): The conditions are so different here from what they are where I am. For one thing it depends upon what your land is worth. I paid $125 an acre for the land I planted. It is pretty difficult to give a close estimate, but I think I could plant an acre of raspberries with my own plants for five dollars. Cultivation is another thing I would put in the value. I would not count the first year's crop, although it might pay rental on the ground. I cultivate with the Breed weeder. I suppose you all know what that means. It is simply one of those big hay rakes, and I can kill an acre of weeds in an hour. There are many other things that enter into the estimate that I cannot discuss in detail. I had potatoes, sweet corn, etc., on the ground. Prof. Robertson: Did you ever put field corn in? Mr. Hartwell: Well, I have done it. I set my berry plants three feet apart in the row and the rows eight feet apart, about 1400 to the acre. I question whether there is a profit in growing a crop between. Prof. Robertson: I tried it this year, and I do not know that it is profitable. Mr. Philips (Wisconsin): The most extensive growers of raspberries in Wisconsin are Coe & Converse, of Ft. Atkinson. They plant them so they can cultivate both ways through the season, and after picking they run the plow through both ways, and they cultivate quickly and successfully. Mr. Hartwell: On sandy soil the Breed weeder will do very nice work. Mr. C. L. Smith: About a crop to grow between: I have tried almost everything, and I have found the easiest of cultivation and the most satisfactory I have used is beans. I put two rows of beans between each row of raspberries and a hill of beans between each two hills of raspberries. The beans paid for the cultivation the first year, so only the value of the ground, the planting and plants are figured in, although the cost for planting is rather more than Mr. Hartwell represents. I practice laying down and covering, and I have made estimates in this society. I thought it might be done for $6.00 an acre, but I think this year and last it cost about $10.00. I think it would cost at least $16.00 to get them through to the second year. You do well to get berries the second year and pay for the cultivation and lay them down for $30.00. Mr. T. T. Smith: How far apart do you plant your black rasp. berries? Mr. C. L. Smith: I make the hills three feet and the rows eight feet. Mr. R. H. L. Jewett: I would like to endorse what Mr. Smith says in reference to a crop between raspberries. Beans are the crop I would recommend above all others, as the ground can always be kept clean. We use the "Success" weeder, which I think is superior to anything else we have; we have no trouble at all in keeping the weeds down. We have a variety of beans that as soon as the pods get full the leaves drop off, so there is no shade on the ground. I think it is the best way to cultivate raspberries. |