The Ideal and the Real in Horticulture. 227 



the fruit. They came and enjoyed it. They went home and 

 planted peach stones from that orchard, but the young trees that 

 grew were soon after killed and the original orchard never bore 

 fruit again. The experiment, was repeated, again and again, years 

 afterward. Twenty-eight years ago I saw a few peach trees loaded 

 with peaches, in the town of Cottage Grove, Dane county, but 

 have not seen a peach growing in Wisconsin since. People in 

 that neighborhood planted peach stones from this orchard, andi 

 some even sent to Rochester, New York, for tree?. All were killed. 

 Our early apple orchards perished as rapidly. We plant now with 

 greater care in selection, and some give better culture, but the 

 public generally is prone to forget, during a period of mild sea- 

 sons, the great fickleness of this climate, and plant half-hardy va- 

 rieties of fruit. In the long catalogue of fruits, how few here can 

 be considered reliable. Some will say a half dozen, others a 

 dozen, apple trees, two or three pear trees, one or two cherry 

 trees, a few p'um trees, a half dozen kinds of strawbeifies among 

 a thousand ; of black raspberries the Doolittle, and that some- 

 times kills badly; one or two kinds of red raspberries, and the 

 same number, perhaps of blackberries ; a few varieties of grapes 

 if well protected in winter, generally furnish good crops. But we 

 are slowly making advances in fruit growing, in spite of climate 

 and other adverse influences; probably a few realize some profit, 

 but they have invariably worked long and persistently against 

 many discouragements to secure this result. 



I would that every farmer in the land had taste and enterprise 

 enough to take proper care of what plants and trees he buys and 

 sets out, but I believe that one-half of all the orchards planted in 

 Wisconsin are permitted to grow without special care or attention. 

 For this condition of things farmers can render excuses. I am 

 well aware of the multiplicity of cases, perplexities, anxieties and 

 frequent disappointments that have beset many farmers' lives in 

 this yet comparatively newly-settled region, but we are now en- 

 tering that period of more stable- prosperity and growth in mate- 

 rial wealth, that requires more diversified wants, and demands 

 more extended intercourse, greater emulation, more cultivated 

 tastes. The ideal of horticulture will be more fully realized when 



