62 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The only addition, or subtraction, or whatever it may be, that I would 

 add to his report is, when he speaks, or his correspondents speak of the 

 hardiness of the fruit buds of certain varieties. I notice New York headed 

 the list with Crosby and Hill's Chili, and Michigan with Hill's Chili, Gold 

 Drop, Kalamazoo and Barnard. It struck me that your correspondents 

 were just a little behind the light house; that is, that their reports were good 

 six or eight years ago; and had they planted and tested thoroughly some 

 of the more recently introduced varieties, their reports would have been 

 different. Now I grow or have grown all these varieties referred to, and 

 I have been up against the proposition of winter-killing of jDeach buds. 

 That and the yellows are the only two things we have to fear. We do not 

 worry about the San Jose scale or the other troubles, but the killing of the 

 buds in winter has been the one serious proposition with me all through 

 life; and so I have tested all these hardier varieties, and I have tested all 

 the newer ones as they have come along in recent years, and I grow them 

 very extensively both in Georgia and Connecticut, and today we find both 

 the Waddell and the Carman hardier than either the Hill's Chili or the Crosby. 

 And yet years ago those were our old hardy varieties. We find the Champion, 

 under trying freeze conditions with us in New England, rather more reliable 

 bearer than the Crosby and the Belle of Georgia, twin sisters of the Elberta; 

 that is, the seed came from the same tree with the Elberta, or in the same 

 year; a white flesh peach, full sister of the Elberta; it is one of our hardiest 

 peaches in New England. We can put it under our most trying conditions, 

 where we would not think of planting the Elberta, where we could not possibly 

 grow a Mountain Rose or an Old Mixon or any of that standard type. We 

 can plant the Belle of Georgia and get crops. We had in Connecticut three 

 or four years ago — we do not brag about our climate as you do here in Mich- 

 igan — we had fruit, following a fall in temperature to 34 degrees below zero 

 in our peach orchards, on Belle of Georgia, on Champion, on Waddell, and 

 Carman trees so that we had paying commercial crops. We had a drop 

 in Georgia from 80 degrees above zero for two or three weeks, when the trees 

 were in bloom, to 4 below zero, and it wiped out trees by the hundreds and 

 thousands of acres ; but a few Waddells bobbed up with peaches on the tree. 

 And so I think if your correspondents had been testing all these peaches 

 over any number of years, your report from Michigan and New York would 

 have been different as to these varieties. 



Prof. Hedrick: Let me say Champion, Belle of Georgia and Carman 

 were all mentioned as hardier than the average, and had they been more 

 generally grown I think they would have ranked toward the top. Waddell 

 is not largely grown in this State nor in New York. I agree with you it 

 ought to be grown more generally. 



Mr. Hale: Some one asked the question about the time of ripening of 

 Champion. It is about ten days ahead of the Elberta. The Waddell is 

 ten days ahead of Mountain Rose, a white flesh peach with a red rose cheek, 

 one of the most profitable early peaches I know of anywhere ; in your profes- 

 sor's description of the growth of a low growing, spreading tree for hardiness, 

 he might have been writing his report while looking at a Waddell peach tree. 



Q. Mr. President, and Mr. Hale, is the Carman and Belle of Georgia 

 hardier than Hill's Chili? I do not find it so. 



Mr. Hale: I think so. I am sure the Carman is; possibly the Belle of 

 Georgia is not quite so, but they are among the very hardy kind. 



Prof. Hedrick: Of course Waddell is very hardy, but at the experiment 

 station, while we had a great many of those varieties that were hardy, I 



