STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, O 



I apprehend that our great want just now is not better frtiit 

 nor more of it. but fruit trees that will live and l)ear sucli fruit as 

 we have — trees that will withstand the vicissitudes of our ever 

 varying climate, trees that will resist our extremes of heat and cold, 

 drouth and flood, the attacks of insects and fungi, and the thousand 

 other ills our trees seem heir to. 



In the valley of the Miami, in the spring of 1802, my grand- 

 father planted the seed of apple trees he had brought from Pennsyl- 

 vania. They grew twenty-five to thirty feet high, with bodies over 

 two feet in diameter. Some of them are still livijig, having Ijorne 

 fruit over seventy-five years without any special culture. 



Nursery-grown trees, planted in the same vicinity, on similar 

 soil, within the last thirty years, make but feeble growth, bear in- 

 dilierentlv a few vears. then dwindle and die. 



I have lately cut down large seedling apple trees on the farm 

 on which I have resided for the last thirty years, in Marion county, 

 that were brought from Kentucky in the spring of 181'J. These, 

 with others planted in the same vicinity by the original settlers, bore 

 fruit over sixty years, and never received any special culture — nor 

 were they injured by the same cold winter two years ago that killed 

 nuiiiy a Hen Davis and Jonathan for me and left its mark on many 

 more not killed outright. 



There are seedling pear trees still living in the same neighbor- 

 hood that were planted at the same time, and I am credibly in- 

 formed that there are seedling pear trees still living and bearing 

 fruit in St. Clair and Monroe counties very much older than any of 

 these, and so far as I can learn they have never received any special 

 culture. 



It is not contended that the fruit borne by all these old trees 

 was equal in (juality to our Jonathan apples or Seckel pears, nor that 

 they bore such crops as our Ben Davis, but does not the \vholesale 

 slaughter of these and similar varieties within the last few years 

 admonish us that, while we have made a wonderful improvement in 

 the quality of our fruit and the productiveness of our trees, we have 

 signally failed to retain and |)erpetuate the stamina of the original? 



If this l)e true who can tell how much of the bitter disa]ipoint- 

 ments and actual losses experienced by the tree-planters within the 

 last few years is directly attributable to the indiscriminate and 

 almost universal practice of grafting into seedling stock, of which 

 literally nothing is known, either l^y the nurseryman or orchardist, in 

 regard to their hardiness? 



From w^hence came these seedlings? From the cider mills and 

 vinegar factories? If so, what class of fruit is usually carried to 

 these? 



Is it the very best specimens of the choicest fruit, from sound, 

 thrifty trees that had proven their hardiness by their age? Such 

 as you would be likely to select if you wished to raise a seedling 

 orchard? • 



