174 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



STANARD. 



Tills apple is beginning to attract attention, as it proves to be the most valuable of 

 all the fall and early winter varieties. This year I had about seven hundred bvishels 

 of this fruit, which has given me an opportunity to test it on the market. By the 

 owners of fruit-stands, train-boys, and all the lovers of good apples, it is pronounced 

 number one. The variety is now pretty well disseminated; so much so that no 

 speculation can be had with it. There are few trees of it for sale, as the nurseries have 

 been stripped of them. Those desiring the fruit should top-graft some seedling of a 

 less valuable variety. I have sent out several hundred small lots in letters to those 

 who have sent a stamp to prepajj^ the postage. It has now been sufficiently tested in 

 Central and Northern Illinois to be put in the list for general market and family use. 

 I have some doubts of its value south, as I notice in that section a tendency to rot on 

 the tree and to crack at the stem. It is an apple of the North, originating some eight 

 miles from Buffalo, New York, and first disseminated by Benjamin Hodge, of the 

 Buffalo Nursery. 



ROME BEAUTY. 



This fruit scabbetl the past season, but on the whole appears to do well, and should 

 be largely planted. None of the new summer apples can compare in value with the 



SOPS OF WINE, 



Which may be safely put at the head of the list of early summer market apples. 



We cannot be too careful in adopting new fruits. These come to us glowing with 

 poetic embellishments of imaginative charlatans, or are the pets of some over anxious 

 godfather. All of these should be submitted to rigid tests, and their merits and 

 demerits fairly presented. A person who buys a new fruit to propagate for sale is not 

 generally the most disinterested person in the world, and his opinion may be taken 

 Avith some caution. 



New fruits of value have, in almost every case, been the result of accident, and they 

 have been a long time in obtaining the confidence of the planter. Nature has been a 

 better cross-breeder than the artist. The Concord, Ives and Hartford grapes can lay 

 no claim to design. The Wilson strawberry, Miami, Black Cap, and our fine apples 

 and pears have all come in the due course of nature, obeying the law of variance. We 

 may, therefore, question the right of any one making a fortune out of them, and the 

 re-naming of old varieties and palming them off as new, should have more than the 

 scorn of the innocent purchaser; it shoiild be treated on the same footing with similar 

 crimes, and subject the vendor to the pains of our statutes. 



M. L. DUNLAP. 



FAILURE OF APPLE ORCHARDS. 



r 



Mr. Flagg presented a letter from Mr. Thomas : 



Union Springs, N. Y., Nov. 15, 1S69. 

 Tyle7' McWhorter, President III. Hovt. Soe. — Respected Friend : Illness and other causes 

 have prevented me from replying sooner in relation to the deterioration of the ajDple 



