STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 227 



rioration appears to be confined to tlie fruit, and here I may particularly specify : 1st, 

 A greater liability to the attacks of fungi of diflferent kinds; 2d, a want of fairness— 

 an outside knurllness, accompanied by hard concretions within; and, od, where no 

 unsoundness can be discerned by the eye there appears a tendency to earlier ripening, 

 or as is more commonly stated, " the apple don't keep," indicating a change in the 

 constitution or "makeup" of the fruit. I confess that my ideas on this point are 

 not so clear but that I find difficulty in expressing them with precision, but I think 

 many others must have noticed the same changes. I know of some who have— and 

 who will understand what I mean. Connected with this appears to be the change 

 before mentioned in the texture of the skin , rendering it more liable to the attacks of 

 fungi. 



There is no doubt that with careful cultivation, as good apples, to aU appearances, can 

 be grown now and here as ever could be grown any where, but they no longer have 

 that almost spontaneous growth of former times, when trees in swarded pastures, 

 entirely neglected and aljandoned to the mercies of the caterpillar and borer, and only 

 visited annually in the autumn for harvesting, yet yielded a marvelous abundance of 

 sound, fair fruit, never ripening prematurely. And it is to be observed that the 

 change in the " make up " of the fruit is found not only in that from neglected ti-ees, 

 but perhaps exon more in that under the highest cultivation, as if the fertilizers used 

 had warmed up the soil so as to produce a similar eflect to that caused by a warm 

 sandy soil, as compared with a strong loam or clay. 



Now, what is the cause of this deterioration ? I do not think it can be laid to insects. 

 With one or two exceptions, it is questionable whether there has been any increase 

 of insects within the last fifty or even one hundred years. About seventy years since 

 the canker worm prevailed in many parts of New England, and appears to have been 

 qviite as destructive as at present. Orchards were entirely defoliated, and for several 

 years the crop of apples was much diminished or entirely cut ofl by these insects. It 

 is beheved that very little was done to check their ravages, but they were finally 

 destroyed in the larval state by a June frost, and their extermination was literally 

 complete. For more than half a century following the canker worm was so rarely 

 seen that on its re-appearance it was scarcely recognized. The borer, codling moth, 

 tent and autumn caterpillars, are no new enemies of the apple, and can scarcely have 

 aided in the work of deterioration. The last two are sufliciently disgusting, and I 

 have spent a good deal of time in destroying both, but I have never known any per- 

 manent injury to result from them when looked after to any reasonable extent. The 

 borer undoubtedly has inflicted lasting injury on trees, and, perhaps, along with 

 other unfavorable influences, destroyed their lives, but I do not think it can have had 

 generally a pernicious eflect on the fruit. So also the canker worm, when allowed to 

 continue its ravages for a series of years, stripping the trees of their foliage and 

 forcing them into late growth in the attempt to renew it, has, especially when the 

 trees were allowed to stand in grass ground and unmamu'ed, caused the death of many 

 trees, but the deterioration of the apple crop is far more general than the spread of the 

 canker worm. 



The insects before alluded to as forming exceptions to the general rule of non- 

 increase during the present century, are the curculio and apple maggot {trypela pomo- 

 nella). (See American Journal of Eorticulture, Vol. 11, p. 338.) The fonner is too well 

 known to require comment; the latter, whenever it has appeared, is one of the greatest 



