STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 21 



Alexander is fairly well liked, inferior in quality, and trees 

 blight badly. 



Wealthy we saw in nearly every orchard, and with hardly an 

 exception the trees were loaded with fruit. Mr. Stickney re- 

 gards this quality of heavy bearing objectionable, on the ground 

 that its tendency is to shorten the life of the tree, like the Ben 

 Davis in our own state. 



Duchess trees were everywhere loaded with fruit of very fine 

 appearance, except in the case of Mr. Stickney's own orchard, 

 where the fruit was badly afflicted with the work of the "little 

 turk," scarcely an apple on 100 trees being perfect. 



The most promising of the new varieties of apples in this lo- 

 cality, and one that Mr. Stickney regarded very highly, was Mc- 

 Mahan's White. The tree is round-headed, a vigorous grower, 

 with dark green foliage, fruit above medium in size, greenish 

 yellow in color, in season about with Maiden's Blush. Mr. 

 Stickney has planted largely of this variety, and if it does as well 

 as its appearance indicates, it will be a valuable acquisition for 

 that season of the year. 



Observing some young apple trees with straw tied up and down 

 the trunks on the south side of same, we were, upon inquiry, in- 

 formed that this was to keep off the flat-headed borer and pro- 

 tect the young trees from the rays of the sun while they were 

 getting started in their growth. This is an item worthy of trial 

 at least. 



In one orchard were a number of trees of the Kentish Cherry. 

 Some of the trees were still loaded with fruit of excellent quality 

 at this date, August 7th. The tree is very similar to Early Rich- 

 mond in appearance, but the fruit ripens some two weeks later. 

 It is regarded here as their best cherry. 



Mr. Stickney marketed sixteen tons of eiirrants from three 

 acres of ground this season, at a net profit of $800. The va- 

 rieties were mainly Prince Albert and Long Bunched Holland. 

 These two varieties retain their foliage throughout the season 

 while Fay's Prolific and Red Dutch, (though better in quality 

 for the table,) grown side by side, were barren of leaves at this 

 elate. A further objection to Fay's prolific is that its stems are 

 not sufficiently upright in their growth, reclining too much upon 

 the ground. 



We visited Mr. Bombier's plantation of small fruits and found 

 everything in fine condition. The Jessie strawberry has done 

 very poorly for Mr. Bombier. He still prefers the Crescent and 

 Wilson for market. Of this season s planting we saw the 

 Bubach in a thrifty condition, but he had not fruited it as 

 yet. Of blackberries, the Snyder and Ancient Briton were his 

 choice of varieties with no special preference between them. 



Pewaukee was our next objective point, and Mr. Stickney very 



