178 State Horticultural Society. 



THIRD SESSIOxM— WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2:30 P. M. 



STONE FRUITS AND STRAWBERRIES. 



PEACH SEEDLINGS. 

 (Rev. John Brereton, Springfield, Mo.) 



I am not here to advocate planting seedlings but to plead for hardy 

 fruits adapted to our respective localities. We want good fruit, but 

 anything that bears is better than the best that is always barren. I am 

 a champion of seedling peaches because they bear. Old settlers say 

 their trees have missed but two crops in thirty-six years. 



To assume that seedlings are no good, because the average is small 

 and tasteless, is like assuming that humanity is a failure, because few 

 equal Washington, Lincoln, Beecher and Moody. But of these four 

 giants only two had a pedigree. History proves that those of lowly 

 origin occasionally move to the front. Horticulturists niay be guilty 

 of the caste spirit in fruit planting as the Brahmin is in family exclusive- 

 ness. In America it is often but one generation from the bottom of the 

 social scale to the top, and vice versa. So in fruits ; the standards lose 

 stamina, while the despised and unknown rise to prominence. 



A Chinese tradition tells of a peach tree which bore fruit only once 

 in a thousand years, but he who was fortunate enough to sample a 

 specimen became immortal. There is much comfort in this to those who 

 have been waiting for their Elbertas to bear. The story also tells of 

 another tree which bore annual crops, but was guarded by a hundred 

 demons, because its fruit v/as said to produce instant death. This last 

 tree was the parent of the Ozark seedling and the devils are the agents 

 and commercial growers who tell us that seedlings are no good. 



Every well known variety was once a chance seedling — not one 

 having originated by purely scientific methods. They are popular be- 

 cause of success amidst local conditions. The mistake has come from 

 assuming that they would yield equal results in other localities. Time 

 has proven that each locality must find varieties adapted to its own soil 

 and climate. 



G. F. Espenlaub has said: "To improve the hardiness of peaches, 

 selected seeds of the hardiest varieties, should be planted ; when these 

 come into bearing, the choicest and hardiest among them should be 

 cared for and the inferior and tender cut out. Each generation would 

 thus move a step toward the ideal-" 



