•304 TRANSACTIONS OF THP] KANKAKEE 



eastern states, askiag how many years tlieir apple orchards remained 

 healthy and in good bearing condition, and why our trees in the 

 west died so youiig. 



In reply to my inquiry John A. Warder says: "You have, in- 

 deed asked a hard question, and one which involves several answers, 

 or a complicated one. There have been many answers offered, some 

 of which are unsatisfactory, root-grafting especially so. 



" The eastern states have suffered in the same way. but to a less 

 extent, and the exceptional trees are the ones you have heard about. 

 Many of them, too, are accidental seedlings — seedlings that have 

 run back to the sturdy, hardy character of the native original cral) 

 type of the first wild apple. The Canadian apples were from French 

 seed, and like their sturdy race of horses, may have been improved 

 in hardiness by the killing oft' ( naturally ) of all the weaklings, and 

 by the ' survival of the fittest * to withstand the rigors of the 

 climate. 



''We pomologists. Avith our refined taste and commercial ideas, 

 have selected only those "fittest" for our object of having choice 

 table fruit, regardless of sturdy trees, which do not always go to- 

 gether, or of having trees that bear al^undantly and are over-pro- 

 ductive and which are early l)earers. both of which qualities being 

 adverse to thrifty and often to hardy tree growth, at least liable to 

 be in opposition to such growth though not always so. Climate also 

 has much to do in the matter. The prairie country especially is 

 often very trying to perennial vegetation, in its drying winds and in 

 sudden changes. The wind-break is there essential as a means of 

 protection: The soil has been blamed, but though some soils are 

 better for trees than others, and we even select certain soils as best 

 for certain rariefies of apples, all our blessed land has in it the 

 necessary elements of growth. The old orchards seldom reach fifty 

 years hore, and are then decimated, and the trees diseased and unpro- 

 ductive, as a rule, though there are exceptions. I have trees set 

 twenty and twenty-five years, that have never yet borne me a fair 

 crop, but they will now produce abundantly for the next twenty 

 years, and some perhaps still longer. Close planting is your salva- 

 tion in the prairie country if you thin out as the space is needed, 

 but cover the ground." 



From Thomas Meehan I received the following reply througli 

 the Gardener^ s Monthly: "There is little doubt that the average life 

 of an a])])le tree in Pennsylvania is about fifty years. The length of 

 life in any tree depends on its vital power. The English oak, in 

 England, has an average of five hundred years. In America its 

 average age, so far as the few instances known will allow us to 

 judge, is about one hundred. The apple, we believe, has about the 

 same comparative duration in the two countries. Anything that 

 affects the vital power of a plant, effects its longevity. A tree that 

 has to struggle with high winds and a low temperature, will not live 



