314 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



of this fruit even in eastern Iowa, occurs in a paper by John Evens, read 

 before the Union Uorticultural Society in 188G, as follows: 



I have planted many pear trees, mostly standards, but have not fruited very many- 

 Could f^et them to prow well for a few years, or until thev wt re old enough to bear, 

 and then the blight would take them. I have had tlie best success with Bartlett, 

 Flemish Beauty, Sheldon, Tyson, Buffum, Seckel, White Doyenne, Anguoleme, and 

 Lawrence. 



Secretary Hammoni], of the Illinois State Horticultural Society, names 

 Flemish Beauty, Anjou, and Tyson as having proved hardy in the noithern 

 portion of that State. 



Dr. T. II. Iloskins. of northern Vermont in the American Garden for 

 September, 1887, says of the new Russian pears t 



Whatever may be the individual or class merit of these pears as dessert fruit (and we 

 are not likely to find many, if any, equal to the best of our old varieties among them), 

 they are yet remarkably interesting as a class, not only for tho superior hardiness 

 against cold and drouth, but also from the fact that they introduce a distinctly new- 

 strain of blood, so to speak, and one which, by crossing upon those we already have, is 

 likely to give us some superior varieties. The firm, glossy foliage, not so thick and firm 

 as that of the Chinese, but yet tending that way, indicates a t^trong resistant power, 

 not only against heat and dryness, but also against insects and fungi. In the many 

 years I have been trying in vain to discover one pear which I could grow successfully 

 in northeastern Vermont, one of the most discouraging tilings I have noted about all 

 of thetn (except Keiffer and Le Conte) has been the defective character of the leafage. 

 Indeed I think that if it were not for this insurmountable difficulty we already have 

 peiirs hardy enough to grow much farther north tlian they are with success. Withoi;t 

 healthy leaves there cannot be thoroughly matured wood; and it is the weakness con- 

 sequent upon this which I think has prevented my success with such "almost hnrdy" 

 pears as Onondaga, Clapp's Farorite, Jackson, Flemish Beauty, and Grand Isle. They 

 endure, as it is, all but our severest winters, and therefore it stems to me that if we 

 could give them a better leaf we could grow them successfully. Now it happens that 

 some of the Russian pears reported to pe be.^t in quality are also the hardiest and have 

 the best foliage. A cross of Seedless, Sapreganka, Dula, Tonkovietka, or Pasovka upon 

 our hardiest sorts named above might confer upon the seedlings that better leaf which 

 is so greatly needed. I trust that some enthusiastic pear-growers may be sufiiciently 

 interested in the matter to be willing to make these crosses and grow the resulting seed- 

 bngs to fruitage. This can only be done by those so situated as to be able to grow and 

 fruit both kinds, which we of the "cold North" are unable to do. 



This last couch siou is but paitially true, since even at the *'cold north" 

 these new iroii-clads may be grown to fruitage and the bloom fertilized with 

 pollen from milder climes. 



How far north the pear may be successfully grown in America is a problem 

 the solution of which can only be fully accomplished in the remote future. 

 Although there is a popular notion that a plant may bo gradually brought to 

 tndure a climate more exacting than that to which it was originally adupted, 

 experience has long since shown that the capacity for such variation, so far 

 as varieties are concerned, lies within very narrow limits. The process 

 through which important results of this character are to be accomplished 

 must rather be the more tardy one or reproduction and selection, either arti- 

 ficial or natural, through which all the wide adaptations of both animal and 

 vegetable life have been wrought. 



By the light of science, aided by intelligent manipulation, the otherwise 

 tardy process of natural selection — the survival of the titttst — may, beyond a 

 question, be greatly hastened. I'oubtless, mainly through natural processes, 

 these Russian fruits have been brought to an adaptation to that climate not 

 originally inherent in the species: and their introduction to the trying climate 

 of our central prairie region thus affords to us a vantage-ground — an advanced 

 starting-point — from which results desirable to us may [perchance be sooner 



