368 . TRANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTURAL 



but for all that our trees have frequently been injured by severe win- 

 ters, and in the main their usefulness has been but of short duration. 

 The first great destruction on record followed the cold winters of 

 1855-'6 and 1856-'7, when many thousands of trees perished. Again, 

 in 1872-''3, large numbers were injured beyond recovery. Again, in 

 1878-'9, a protracted spell of warm weather in February, which was 

 followed by severe cold in March, proved to be very disastrous. But 

 the climax was finally reached in the winters of 1882-1885 — especially 

 the latter; and so we find ourselves at the present time; after a lapse 

 of half a century since the first orchards were planted west of the 

 great lakes, practically without a single orchard worthy of the name, 

 without a single variety of winter apples left us to tie to as regards 

 hardiness. The only varieties left us that we can call hardy in the 

 true sense of the term are Duchess, Tetofsky and some of the later 

 imported Russians and the Whitney and others of the Siberian type. 

 The above mentioned varieties were not the only ones in which apple 

 trees of our old assortments were injured. We can, in fact, very 

 well remember the discolorations of the young wood and frequent 

 bark bursting of young trees in the nurseries, which condition of 

 affairs has been of quite frequent occurrence during the greater num- 

 ber of winters we have paased through — a condition not very favora- 

 ble for the production of healthy, long-lived and profitable orchard 

 trees. 



During all these years we have been adding to our list every so- 

 called "iron-clad" vanity we could hear of, and discarding such 

 kinds as from time to time have proved least desirable; yet these bogus 

 iron-clads have, as a rule, proved no better nor hardier than such as 

 have been discarded. The sooner we accept the fact that the entire 

 assortment of varieties whose origin is traced to the type of Western 

 Europe lacks that constitutional hardiness so necessary to endure 

 our peculiar climate, the sooner we adjust our methods of propaga- 

 tion to the requirements of the situation; the sooner will we make 

 advancement in orchard culture, and, at best, we can not begin too 

 soon. 



We had hoped much from the introduction of the Russians — 

 too much, in fact; and we have been compelled to suffer consider- 

 able disappointment. Not because of their lack of adaptability or 

 hardiness, but because no satisfactory late keepers of acceptable 

 quality have as yet developed among these foreigners; and while some 

 of them undoubtedly possess good blood to use in breeding up a 

 hardier race, that shall be better suited to our wants than anything 

 we now possess, we are obliged to fall back upon our native assort- 

 ment for a supply of winter fruit for many years to come. 



Our only hope in this line for the production of passably healthy 

 and long-lived trees, however, is in top-working them upon such 

 hardy stocks as may be available for this work, such as Duchess, 

 Whitney, and other Russians and crabs as shall be congenial to the 

 common apple and produce a good union. 



