STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 151 



hundred bushels of this fruit sold the past season, at an average of about eighteen 

 cents per quart. Extensive cherry orchards arc being planted, one of 3,000 trees. 

 The curculio has commenced its work of destruction on this fruit. Lawton black- 

 berries that were well cut back bore good crops. Kittatinny promises well. Grapes 

 rotted badly, but those spiral trained less than others. Apples bore full crops. The 

 Stanard apple is by far the most profitable apple grown in this county. Tree and 

 hedge planting is largely on the increase. 

 All of which is respectfully submitted. WM. P. PIERSON. 



Mr. Galusha — The situation of my family is such that I shall not be 

 here at the close of Mr. Freeman's address, and there is one item 

 that I wish to speak of. In my visits I discovered an apple new to 

 me; a very fine fall apple, resembling the Northern Spy very much. 

 I could not identify it from the books, and procured some specimens 

 to bring here, and see if they could be identified. It is the most 

 valuable fall apple we have in our district this year. I have a few 

 scions which any gentleman can have to graft and try. [The scions 

 were distributed among the members.] ^ 



REPORT UPON SOUTHERN ILLINOIS SOILS. 



The hour of ten having arrived, Mr. Freeman addressed the Society 

 as follows : 



Mr. President and Gentlemen ; 



My report will be confined to Southern Illinois — that part from Centralia to Cairo. 

 At the annual meeting of this Society in 1867, when it was held at South Pass, there 

 was a very animated discussion on the subject of pears, and some remarks so directly 

 contradictory as to the merits of the same pear in different localities, that it satisfied 

 me, at the time , that much of this difference was due to a radical difference in the soils ; 

 and it led me to follow up this matter until the present time. I had opportunities at 

 the time, to investigate it in the North, and lay the foundation for discoveries in the 

 Southern part the following year ; and it will show the exceeding difficulty of arrang- 

 ing fruit districts for different varieties of fruit with any hope that the same variety is 

 going to be universally applicable to any district, even if you confine it to one county, 

 and as Judge Brown said when he was President, the cultivation of the soil cannot be 

 made specific in any one direction, but it must be regulated by the peculiarities of 

 each particular plot of land. 



In the lecture of Mr. Shaw last evening, he showed to you the "drift." "We have, 

 since the drift, several other descriptions of soil in other localities. The diagram which 



