SUMMER MEETING AT CHILLICOTHE. 35 



Mr. . Hopkins is the most profitable raspberry with him. 



Kittatinny the best blackberry, and in fact the most profitable berry of 

 all kinds he grows. Xever cultivates at all, but mulches heavily 

 between the rows. 



Dr. Green asks if the berries become too low, will it pay to make 

 cordial, or can't they be put in cans ? 



Mr. Goodman says that it pays to can raspberries and black- 

 berries at 5c per box, and a canning- factory could afford to pay that 

 for them for canning purposes. 



For mulching the majority preferred prairie hay first, wheat-straw 

 second, cornstalks third. 



HABDINESS OF PEACH TREES. 



To the Officers ajid Membei-s of the Missouri State Hoi'iicultural Society : 



The subject assigned to me is one that I believe to be of great inaportance to 

 the fruit-grower, but it is one on which I do not feel qualified to write with 

 authority, from the fact that my observations in this line have been somewhat 

 limited. Enough is known, however, to justify the conclusion that there is a field 

 here from which important results may come. 



It is a well-known fact that trees of the different varieties of apples vary 

 greatly in their ability to withstand the rigors of the winter's cold, and the same 

 is true of the canes of the various varieties of blackberries, and it is notoriously 

 true of the grape vine, the fig, the orange, and many other things. Then why 

 does not the same law hold gcod with the peach? I affirm that it does, though 

 perhaps less so than with some of the other things named. 



Seedling peaches will, and often do, bear crops when most budded varieties 

 fail, and some varieties of budded trees will be loaded with fruit, while others 

 have none. This has often occurred and continues to occur constantly and all the 

 time; hence the conclusion is reached that the peach, like other kinds of fruit- 

 trees, varies, among its members, in its ability to resist cold. 



Why this is so may be more than I can tell, but it may be accounted for in 

 part by the fact that in nature, as a rule, high quality is obtained at the expense 

 of hardihood, and this applies to the peach as well as to other things. The 

 peaches now in cultivation have nearly all been selected for their fine quality and 

 appearance without regard to hardiness of tree or bud, and, consequently, they 

 are mostly more susceptible to cold than seedlings, which have been allowed to 

 follow, to a much greater extent, the law of the survival of the fittest, by being 

 propagated over and over again from seed of the hardier sorts which bear the 

 oftenest. Thus, in a general way, there has come to be quite a difference between 

 the budded and the seedling trees in point of hardiness. 



Another reason is that there is much variation in the size of the blossom, and 

 in the amount of covering the embryo fruit has in its winter quarters. The blos- 

 soms of some trees are fully twice the size of those of some others, and this, to 

 some extent, makes a difference in the amount of cold they can stand. 



I have not a large collection of varieties, but among those I have, the Early 

 York is, I believe, the hardiest, surpassing in this respect some of the seedlings 

 which grow near it. It often bears a small crop when other budded varieties fail 

 entirely. 'J he Sylphide cling has also torne a full crop when others had a very 



