Most other varieties had some fruit, but it was not perfect; it showed only too well the effect of frost.  More than half of the blossoms were destroyed.  Many flowers were badly injured and though they were setting fruit the result of frost showed off plainly on the apples.  While some had normal size and form, many of them were below size, gnarled, cracked or undeveloped and abnormal.  Most all of them had rough blotches or rings about the calix or around the body.  Malformed apples were picked not larger than a crab, with rough, cracked, leather-like skin, which looked more like a black walnut than an apple.

Of plums only some young trees gave us a good crop of nice, perfect fruit.  The old trees have seen their best days and will have to give place to the new kinds as soon as they are tested.  We have quite a variety of the new kinds on trial from the Minnesota State Fruit-Breeding Farm and wish to say that they are very vigorous growers.  Many of them made a growth of four feet and more.  We expect that some will bear next year and we are only waiting to see what the fruit will be before making a selection for a new plum orchard.  We have already selected No. 8 for that purpose, as one tree was bearing most beautiful and excellent plums, of large size and superior quality, this year.  They were one and three-fourths inches long by five and one-half inches in circumference and weighed two ounces each.  They kept more than week before they got too soft for handling and are better than many a California plum.  It seems to us if a man had ten acres of these plum trees, he could make a fortune out of them.  We will propagate only the very best kinds for our own use and may have more to say about them another year.

[Illustration:  Cluster of Alpha grapes from Collegeville.]

Two or three of the imported pears bloomed again last spring, but the frost was too severe and they set no fruit.  We have lost all interest in them and so, too, in our German seedling pears.  The latter are now used as stocks and are being grafted with Chinese and hybrid pears.  Of those already grafted this way some have made a growth of four and five feet.  We have been successful in grafting the six varieties of hybrid pears obtained last spring from Prof.  N.E.  Hansen, of Brookings, S. Dak., and have trees of every variety growing.  These, too, are very good growers, have fine large leaves and are promising.  From the manner of growth in stem and leaf we would judge that at least two distinct Asiatic varieties have been used in breeding.  We have gathered a little grafting wood and next spring some more German seedlings will lose their tops.  It is only from continued efforts that success may be obtained in growing pears in Minnesota.