Prof.  R. S. Mackintosh, of University Farm, was caught on the floor, and as usual took opportunity to tell people they ought to eat more apples and something about how to get them.  This seems to be a subject that is ever in his mind and which he is persistently working to good advantage.

“You folks that are hungry and want apples or apple pie want to get busy about the middle of August and eat up your surplus apples in Minnesota.  It is a shame that farmers, fruit growers, etc., have spent years trying to grow apples in Minnesota and then we cannot get enough people to eat the apples.  We are going to carry on the clearing house as we did last year, and if you want apples let us know.  We can grow apples the same as we can grow peonies and strawberries, but it is a little hard to get them distributed properly.”

Mr. A. M. Brand, of Faribault, who had an extraordinary exhibit of seedling peonies at the meeting, pronounced by our peony expert, Mr. C.S.  Harrison, “second to none in the world,” was introduced and talked briefly along the line of seedling peony production, as follows:  “There is a great deal of encouragement in what we have been able to accomplish down there at Faribault along the line of producing something fine in peonies.  Sixteen years ago we started out with the idea of improving upon the stock that we already have.  We had a little red peony, a very nice peony, originated by Mr. Terry down in Iowa, called Rachel, and starting out with that as a mother plant we have produced some of the finest roots that there are in cultivation.  By using lots of the seed of Rachel we have been able to produce this Mary Brand, considered by many of the peony growers as one of the finest red peonies in the world.  A great many people that raise nice peonies think they have to go to the trouble of hand fertilization.  That isn’t necessary.  We started out with such varieties as Rachel, and by letting the bees and the elements do the fertilizing for us we were able to produce varieties like this.  Here is the new seedling that we brought out this year and named Ruth—­a pink peony.  As a rule we plant about a peck of seed every year, and out of that peck of seed it probably brings us 10,000 seedlings, and out of this 10,000 we get one good seedling, and this is the only good seedling that we have produced this year.  This is a seedling that comes from Rosa Fragrans.  When we picked this seedling from the bed of seedlings we considered this the finest seedling that we had, and it has never come good from that time to this, and it is ten years since we have been trying this seedling, which will show you when you are growing seedlings that the first time a seedling blossoms and comes splendid you mustn’t be too enthusiastic about it.  The next year it may be worth nothing.  You have got to try a seedling in every way to find out whether it is worth sending out.  As a rule it takes us ten years from the time that a seedling first blossoms until we send it out.  Ninety per cent of all the peony seedlings that you grow will be singles, one out of 10,000 seedlings will be fair and one out of 100,000 seedlings will be extra good—­so you see that those which we have produced give us some encouragement.  I wouldn’t advise many of you to go into the seedling business, although you might produce one good seedling out of a handful of seed.