At the state horticultural meeting in Des Moines, December last, was exhibited one hundred varieties of seedlings and a large number of those, to my judgment, were good keepers and fine looking apples.  Hundreds and hundreds of varieties of apples have been imported from Russia, and I for one have tested fifty or sixty of those Russian varieties, but at the state meeting, where I exhibited seventy-seven varieties, I was able to show only three Russian varieties, Longfield, Antinovka and Volga Cross.  I think I have reason to ask what would we have for apples today if there had not been any seedlings raised?  Why does the State of Minnesota offer one thousand dollars for a seedling apple tree that is as hardy as the Duchess with fruit as good as the Wealthy and that keeps as well as the Malinda?  Because to get such a variety it must come from seed.

Planting for Color Effects in the Garden.

MRS. H. B. TILLOTSON, MINNEAPOLIS.

The most attractive flower bed in my garden this year has been the one planted for a blue and white effect.  From earliest spring, soon after the snow had gone, until now, October 4th, there has been something interesting and beautiful blooming there.

In the middle of the summer it was one tangled mass of lilies, delphinium, phlox and gypsophila, their perfume filling the whole garden.  As the lilies faded and the delphinium grew old and went to seed, the old stalks were cut away.  The phlox and delphinium bloomed again in a little while, and in September the candidum lilies began to come through the ground, getting ready for next year.

The bed is three feet wide by thirty long, and was covered last winter with loose straw and leaves, with a few cornstalks to hold them in place.  Early in April this was raked off and the edges of the bed made straight, for the grass always grows in a little each year.  The warm sunshine soon brought out the scilla and crocus, almost carpeting the whole bed.  One would not think of the other things hiding under their leaves.

The forget-me-nots began to look green along the edge, and up through the fading crocus and scilla came a few straggling grape hyacinths, blue and white, and one lonely plant of the Virginia cowslip (Mertensia)—­more could have been used with good effect, for they too disappear after awhile.

The Virginia cowslip staid in bloom until the forget-me-nots were a mass of blossoms, and the blue Darwin tulips (pink, really, with a blue spot in the bottom of the cup, just back of them) were in all their glory.  In the middle of the bed the Madonna lilies, and belladona delphinium had covered the ground with green.  In spots the wild violets were in blossom—­they had crept in some way from the dirt—­I think it had been taken from the woods near by.