SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. ±39 



with as much water as it will bear without precipitating the acid, so as to 

 make the solution go as far as possible. Each apple should be enveloped in 

 at least three or four folds of the salicylate*! paper, and every possible pre- 

 caution should be taken to prevent bruising when loading into the casks or 

 cases. Well packed apples should not stir at all during the voyage, and the 

 shaking of the railway train should have little effect upon them. Neverthe- 

 less, a certain amount of contusion is inevitable, and to avoid the ulterior 

 results of this the salicylated paper is indispensable. 



OTHER FRUITS. 



Improvement of Wildlings. — Mr. A. S. Fuller, after remarking that- 

 most of the improvements in fruits are the result of chance rather than skill 

 in manipulation, advises that those who happen to know of choice or even 

 moderately fine wild sorts of any of the fruits we have named, or of others — 

 because we have omitted some from the list — should save seed from the 

 very best and plant a few every year, and then carefully attend to the culti- 

 vation of the plants until they come into bearing. If any improvement is 

 noticed, gather the seeds of these and sow again, and continue in this line 

 until the desired result is secured. To do this would not take many hours' 

 time from other duties, and when a person once becomes interested in such 

 a line of experiments, the pleasure derived from it will more than repay him 

 for the labor, even if no variety worthy of dissemination is produced. , 



Time will go on all the same whetner.we are experimenting or not, and a 

 man will be no older when his seedling fruit tree comes into bearing than he 

 would have been had no seeds ever been planted. Men well advanced in 

 years will often offer as an excuse that they are too old to commence raising 

 seedling fruits, but this is a lame excuse, for we are all enjoying comforts 

 which we had no hand in creating; and as we cannot repay our obligations 

 to those whose harvest we are reaping, we can scarcely do less than drop 

 a few seeds for those yet to come, and thus — in part at least — balance the 

 account. 



He says further, with regard to species that are the most promising to 

 work with : We have wild plums in great variety, and of various degrees of 

 excellence, and wild crab apples, not much worse, if any, than the parent 

 stock of our choicest European varieties. Our native persimmons are exceed- 

 ingly variable, and we probably have wild sorts equal to the original date 

 plum of Europe, or the much praised kaki of China and Japan. The paw- 

 paw or custard apples must not be overlooked, for with three native species 

 and many varieties to commence with, and all eatable, it is but reasonable to 

 expect that cultivation could do much for this long-neglected but really valu- 

 able fruit. 



Our wild cherries are not so promising as some other kinds of native fruits, 

 but there are a few which, in their original state, are the equal of the wild 

 mazzard of Europe, the parent of our cultivated sweet cherries. The wild 

 red cherry (Prunus Pennsylvanica) gives us^a few varieties that are worthy 

 of an attempt to improve, for the fruit is simply acid, not astringent, like 

 the choke cherry. A closely allied species (P. demissa) of the Rocky Moun- 



