60 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



bear were thev healthy and prolific, we are astonished at the magni- 

 tude of the sum. Its value would be sufficient in each of the States 

 devastated to endow a college every five years. It seems to me a use- 

 less waste of time to discuss the cause of the decline of the apple tree, 

 when the cause is so apparent it can be given in half a dozen words : 

 tianf of adaptation to its environments. The apple trees of Western 

 Europe are not adapted to the climate of the vast region lying be- 

 tween the Lakes and the Rocky Mountains. This point may as well 

 be conceded, and forever settled. To replant our orchards with the 

 same kinds of trees would simply be inviting a like disaster in the 

 future. But some one says, " The dead trees bore abundantly in the 

 past, and why not replant with the same varieties? '^ I reply by say- 

 ing that the hardiest live but fifteen or twenty years, whereas in New 

 England trees are yet prolific at a century old ; and in New York, 

 Michigan, portions of Indiana, Southern Illinois, and Missouri, Ar- 

 kansas and Tennessee, and other portions of the United States, the 

 varieties that have failed in the Northwest are considered hardy and 

 prolific, and of reasonable longevity. Such haphazard planting may 

 give us some fruit, but it is extremely uncertain and unsatisfactory, 

 and a scientific and enlightened horticulturist should be able to give 

 us trees sufficiently hardy to live lonr/er than one or two decades. 

 The varieties we have, seem to have come to us by chance, and some 

 of them in certain sections of the United States happen to be adapted 

 to the climate, and therefore give reasonable satisfaction. This is 

 comparatively a new country, and it is not long since the whole con- 

 tinent was a wilderness, consequently all the improved varieties of 

 fruit trees and plants had to be brought here from other parts of the 

 world. But w^iere is the pomologist, the horticultural society, or 

 the State (with the single exception of Iowa) who has ever gone or 

 sent their agents abroad over the world with a view of making judi- 

 cious selections of apple and other fruit trees, adapted to the various 

 localities in this country, since its settlement by white men? Echo 

 answers, where ! It is true that one tree has come to us by chance, 

 which liapjpens to be adapted to our locality, and is therefore hardy 

 and prolific. I refer, of course, to the Duchess. 



The doctors of divinity have their institutions of learning, where 

 the young are taught by experts the principles of their profession ; 

 the doctors of medicine have their's in like manner, as also have the 

 doctors of law ; but where, save the single instance just mentioned, 

 have we institutions that teach in like manner pomological science 

 to the young? It is a fact that our State agricultural schools give 

 some instructions in pomology, incidentally, and the Illinois Univer- 

 sity has made one grand experiment. Its professors procured all the 

 varieties of apple trees they could hear of in the United States (sev- 

 eral hundred) and planted them on the University farm, and the 

 trees pretty much all died, and there the learned professors stopped 

 short, which circumstance reminds me of the doctor who had a very 



