322 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



While, therefore, there are in many minds grave doubts as to the sound- 

 ness of tlie opinions put forth by Professor Budd and others respecting the 

 sufficiency of the Russian apples to meet and supply the present lack, such 

 doubts seem mainly to turn upon the question, whether, under so extended a 

 transplacivg, they are likely to sufficiently retain their orir/inal long-keeping 

 qualities. In this connection it is perhaps due to the professor to state that, 

 while he does not deny the objectionable modification of the earlier importa- 

 tions of Russian apples as to the season of ripening, he urges that these were 

 west Russian or sea-board varieties ; and that tl^e varieties from the interior, 

 where the climate is more nearly that of the prairie regions, have been but 

 recently imported, and that they yet lack time to show results. He insists 

 that among these there is good reason to anticipate a sufficient supply of long 

 keepers. 



Since these experiments are being conducted at the south (latitude 42°), 

 the objection of pre-maturity may be expected to become less and less as we 

 go northward, where the chief question becomes that of sufficient hardiness. 



The blight of the apple tree, if not wholly unknown in New England and 

 New York, is at least so little known as scarcely to excite remark ; while in 

 Michigan it rarely attacks a tree below the growth of the current year, and 

 not even that to such extent as to effect serious injury. As we go westward 

 the malady becomes increasingly troublesome beyond Lake Michigan, increas- 

 ing in virulence westward, and especially northward. At 20 miles from the 

 lake, in Wisconsin, it occasions more or less injury; while at BaraHoo, mid- 

 way across the state, it becomes increasingly troublesome, occasional trees 

 being nearly or quite ruined by it. In northern Iowa and southern Minne- 

 sota it is quite as prevalent and injurious. Still further north, at Excelsior, 

 Peier M. Gideon finds it very troublesome upon crab seedlings, while his 

 orchard of Russian apples has been utterly ruined by it. 



From all the circumstances it seems highly probable that there may at 

 least be a climatic predisposing cause. If so, there would probably be 

 between the apparently similar climates of central North America and east- 

 ern Europe some occult difference which has so far eluded observation, since 

 this malady, so prevalent and destructive in the former, is said to be practi- 

 cally unknown in the latter. 



The number of varieties included in these several importations of apples 

 can not be less than 350. If, among these, a dozen, or even a half dozen, 

 satisfactory lf)ng keepers shall occur, in addition to to the earlier ones already 

 tested, the undertaking will doubtless be felt to be amply justified, to say 

 nothing of the means acquired for the origination of a better, because hardier 

 race of fruit in the future. 



Mr. Lyon here gives a tabulated list of about 400 Russian apples, as re- 

 ported by Chas. Gibb to the American Pomological Society, indicating the 

 degree of their success in the several districts, and continues: 



It is quite generally conceded that these Russian importations have yielded 

 several early varieties of apple fully equal, if not in some respects superior, to 

 any of our older native varieties of similar season, and that these are hence 

 likely to prove valuable even in regions in which their superior hardiness is 

 not specially important. 



The most serious complaint respecting these importations as a whole is 

 found in the fact that in the latitude of southern central Iowa, to which they 

 come mainly from a region lying from S"-' to 12*^ further north, the transfer 



