110 Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society. 



winter, hardy in tree, blight-proof in summer, productive, and the 

 fruit large, handsome and fairly good, and in season ranging from 

 summer to fall and late winter. 



The next step was the visit of Prof. Budd, of Iowa, and Charles 

 Gibb, of Quebec, to Russia, in 1882. They used the essay of Col. 

 Robertson in the Minnesota report of 1873 as their guide book in 

 searching out the orchards of the Volga and the cherry districts of 

 Vladimir. An account of their researches can be read at length in 

 the Iowa and Minnesota reports and the Montreal Horticultural 

 report of 1883. As a help to this study, I would recommend that 

 the Washington catalogue of 1870 be printed in our next report, 

 to be followed in time by the lists of Prof. Budd and Charles Gibb. 

 The labor of these men in bringing those varieties was a good work, 

 but it was only a beginning. I think there ought to be another 

 commission sent to bring more. When we find varieties in corre- 

 sponding climate there, they will suit us here. I think the atten- 

 tion of the government ought be brought to this. I know of no 

 other society that could move the government as well as this. 



Prof. Robson, of Kansas — There are only three ways of produc- 

 ing varieties of fruit to suit different regions ; first, by acclimatizing 

 of trees brought from other places; second, by producing varieties 

 from the primative form; third, by hybridization. I do not want 

 us to get excited. There are many here old enough to remember the 

 Morus Multicaulus excitement, the Larch excitement and the Wil- 

 low excitement. I would recommend that the youngest men of 

 this Society be selected to make experiments by the second plan, 

 that is, producing varieties from the primitive form. Andrew 

 Knight, of England, produced more varieties of pears than any 

 one else by crossing, and he was very successful. There has been 

 too much effort made to get large, fine looking fruit regardless of 

 quality. We have deteriorated by working for large fruits. That 

 is the way we have got strawberries with imperfect flowers. If I 

 was young again I would commence cross-fertilization. I know an 

 orchard in which, for twenty-two years, I never saw a blighted pear 

 shoot, and they bore most every year. Select those which have good 

 qualities and join them by crossing, and you will have good varie- 

 ties. You can get varieties to suit any place. I hold that the lo- 

 cality where a variety is originated will suit that variety better tlum 



