New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 397 



It is desirable that experience with a particular plant extending 

 over a long period should be put on record if it have a bearing 

 on this matter of degeneracy. Most of the apples discussed in- 

 this Bulletin have been grown on the Station grounds. The 

 origin, history, description and statements of faults and merits 

 from textbooks, the press and correspondents, are on file and in 

 daily use. When all the information from these sources, made 

 plain by familiarity, is focused, stability rather than variation 

 characterizes varieties of apples. 



The following varieties, in particular, have been studied in 

 the orchard and in the literature. The Baldwin has been under 

 cultivation since about 1740, yet trees on our grounds, from sev- 

 eral sources, show no signs of deterioration. Though Baldwin is 

 the most widely planted apple in America, the whole progeny of 

 the original tree, with the exception of the Russet Baldwin, a 

 mutation, is uniformly the same when grown under identical con- 

 ditions. A Rhode Island Greening tree in the Station orchard 

 propagated from what is supposed to be the original Rhode Island 

 Greening, about 200 years old, is the same in growth and bears 

 apples no better, no worse, than trees several generations removed 

 from the parent plant. The Roxbury Russet, Lady and Fameuse, 

 all grown for three centuries, show no impairment of vigor or 

 change in characters if we may compare growing plants with the 

 descriptions in old textbooks. 



Varieties known to be over 200 years old, beside the three 

 named, trees of which still grow vigorously and produce well, are 

 Ribston, Green Newtown, Holland Winter, Pomme Grise, Winter 

 Pearmain and Yellow Bellflower. Of those over 100 years there 

 .are a score or more of well known sorts whose history and be- 

 havior are so well recorded as to leave little doubt that they are 

 the same now as in the beginning. If they are wearing out it is 

 a very slow process. Among these are Fall Pippin, Gloria Mundi, 

 Hawley, Williams, Early Harvest, Detroit Red, Oldenburg, Red 

 Astrachan, Maiden Blush, Porter, St. Lawrence, Sweet Bough, 

 Black Gilliflower, Ben Davis, Cooper Market, Domine, Esopus 



