68 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



A portion of the fruit ripens several weeks, sometimes, before the 

 remainder upon the same tree will mature. In answer to a question, he 

 said that this fruit did not grow spontaneously (or " native ") in the region 

 of Princeton. 



Air. Essex said that he found the persimmon growing wild, forty- 

 four years ago, near Peoria. 



Dr. Spalding had noticed a difference of two months in time of 

 ripening. The earliest were best; late ones were small and astringent. 

 He had ten or twelve trees giving quite an assortment of fruit. He 

 thinks these were all suckers from the same tree, but is not certain. 



Prof. CoMSTOCK asked if suckers from a staminate tree would ever 

 produce fruit-bearing trees.'' 



Dr. Hull replied that they might, as this tree sported very much. 



Mr. Bryant said that suckers from a bearing tree will bear fruit 

 in three or four years from the transplanting, while trees grown from 

 seeds of the same parent tree will not bear under about ten years; also 

 said that seedlings are more difficult to transplant than suckers. They 

 should be planted at one year from the seed. 



Dr. Spalding, in answer to a question from Dr. Humphrey, said, 

 that suckers are safely transplanted by cutting their roots, or breaking 

 the connection with the parent tree the previous year. 



Air. Bird, of Iowa, asked if the qualities of the fruit itself would 

 justify the planting and culture of the trees. 



Air. Riley — The fruit sells well in St. Louis. The fact of the tree 

 evincing such a disposition to variation should stimulate fruit-growers 

 to experiment with it. I have known some varieties that were really 

 excellent. 



Mr. Shepherd had found that suckers produced fruit of same 

 variety as the parent tree. He plucked fruit, from the same tree, from 

 August to November; had trouble to keep his fruit, as he found every 

 one was willing to partake of it. 



Mr. Bryant — The persimmon tree does not sucker so badly as to 

 prove a serious objection to its cultivation.* 



Mr. Stafford related a remarkable instance of variation or " sport- 

 ing" in fruit. He said that he planted a Rawles' Janet apple tree in 

 i86i. The first two years of its bearing it produced genuine Rawles' 

 Janet apples, but had since (or for the last two years), produced sweet 

 apples. 



Mr. Galusha said that it was well known that there are two varie- 

 ties of Carolina June apples. He had also, during the last year, found 

 two distinct sorts of Snow apples (Fameuse), varying in their external ap- 

 pearance in the same way as the Carolina Junes do, viz : the one blush, 

 or wholly red, while the other is striped. The striped variety is a little 



*NoTE.— This habit of sprouting- from the roots is hereditary to a certain extent, and is likely 

 to increase with each sifccessive generation of trees tlius propagated. — Sec, 



