ii96 TRANSACTIONS OF THE KANKAKEE 



gardener would sell all his choice vegetables and save the culls for 

 seed? No sir, he knows too well that a few years of this would 

 ruin his business. Then, why should we consume all our best apples 

 and save the poor ones for seed? The fact is, two thirds of all the 

 apple trees that are progagated at the present day are from this 

 worthless trash. You may put all the fruits that there are on the 

 face of this earth together, and the apple — the best of them all — 

 has been ten times more degenerated than all of them put together. 

 And, why? Because the seedman and the nurseryman cannot get 

 seed from choice fruit. It is not in the market, at any price. We 

 sell our best apples, and the seed goes to waste. We eat our choice 

 fruit, and don't save the seed. 



In conclusion, I will say that, just so long as we keep on plant- 

 ing trees propagated from roots grown from seed of sickly trees, and 

 use scions that have inherited disease for generations, just so long 

 will our orchards continue to leave us. But if we save seed from our 

 hardiest and best apples as we did in the good old days of long ago, 

 and graft them with the best stock to be had, then our new sorts, 

 which are now strong and vigorous, will have come to stay; and our 

 old stand bys, which are slowly, but surely, passing away, will revive 

 year after year; and finally greet us with the pleasant recollections 

 of the past. 



Members of the Kankakee Horticultural Society, " Look well to 

 the seed and the scion." 



