240 tea]sisactio:ns or the Illinois 



boards : and to keep thi'ough winter in tills manner with the trifling loss by freezing of 

 a few inches on the out edge. Some of the learned nurserymen of the West have 

 kindly suggested that the Milam was not a very good apple; but the farmers in old 

 Edgar continue to grow and to appreciate it as one of the indispensable varieties. 



The Pear. — Strange to tell that the pear, the most delicious of all fruits, should have 

 been neglected as it has in this country to the present time. When I was a boy there 

 could be seen on most of the old farms a few large bearing trees of the Pound Pear, 

 Sugar, Great Mammoth, or seedling pear trees. But on a recent tour of three days, 

 in examining these old orchards, I find that not one of them are not living. (The 

 same may be said of the first generation of Morello Cherry trees.) A tree of the Pound 

 Pear, planted by F. Freidy, west of Paris, some forty years ago, did good service 

 until the last year; it was broken down in a storm. The largest pear trees that 1 can 

 find in these parts are in an orchard of 176 trees, planted by my father in 1840, for the 

 express purpose of proving the value of the various varieties. At that time there had 

 not been a half dozen sorts in bearing in the county. A part of these trees were root- 

 grafted, most of them stalk worked, four feet high, when in the nursery ; a few were 

 seedling stocks planted in the orchard, and budded in the limbs a few years later. 

 Over fifty varieties were planted, most of which came into bearing; many of them 

 finally blighted, or otherwise died back to the stalk, and have grown up seedling. 

 About three-fourths of the original trees planted are yet hving, in good bearing con- 

 dition, from twenty to thirty feet high. The following are the only surnivors except 

 the seedlings: White Doyenne, Flemish Beauty, Urbaniste, Bartlett, Julienne, Col- 

 mar's Van Mons, and Winter Baking. These have not only resisted tJie UigM, but 

 have withstood the teirille winter of 1855-56, in which the mercury fell to thiHy degrees 

 'below zero (the lowest degree ever felt in this county — so said the oldest inhabitant at 

 that time), which proved so destructive to all tender trees, and to many previously 

 thought to be hard}'. They have Ijeen 'ai^ free from Might and other diseases as the hardiest 

 apple trees, and have failed in but three crops in the last twenty years. The largest 

 tree, the White Doyenne, measures in girth three feet six inches; a Bartlett, three 

 feet five inches ; a Colmar's Van Mons, three feet three inches ; an Urbaniste, two feet 

 seven inches, and the largest seedling tree, three feet five inches. This orchard was 

 cultivated for six to eight years, and then put dov^m in grass, and has not been culti- 

 vated but one season since. The White Doyenne is pre-eminently hardy ; its close, firm 

 and well-matured growth has been entirely free from blight; a great bearer, fruit 

 scarcely surpassed in quality, but not as large as desirable for market. On dwarf trees, 

 for a few years past, this variety has been aflected considerably with scab and cracking 

 of the fruit: but on standard trees invariably smooth avd fine. The Bartlett, a young, 

 full and annual bearer of large and handsome fruit, has proven to be the most valuable, 

 though the Flemish Beauty, nearly as large, hardier, freer from blight, superior in 

 quality , and scarcely less productive, is a strong rival of that variety for the popular 

 favor. 



Elijah Bacon brought thirty varieties of pear from New York, and planted on his 

 farm, in the north of this county, in 1815. These were (every tree) killed, by the 

 severe winter above named, except the Flemish Beauty, and they were injured, but 

 produced abundant crops, many years later, of as fine pears as I have ever had the 

 pleasure of examining. 



