THE BABBITT APPLE. 387 



"twenty-two years ago they had stood the winters there perfectly. The 

 trees of that variety have been under my own eye for twenty-three 

 years in Iowa, and now for six years in Holt county, Missouri. During 

 that six years have occurred several among the very worst winters 

 ever known for apple trees ; also the great three years" drouth of 1885, 

 1886 and 1887, and not a tree of the Babbitt has been smirched by the 

 winters, nor more than merely held back by the summers of the great 

 drouth. jSTo other tree has endured all these trials any better, if in- 

 deed, just as well. Illinois, Iowa and Missouri, the testing has now 

 been going on for half a century. The variety was known as "Western 

 Baldwin," until at the annual meeting of our State Society, held at 

 Lexington, December, 1886, when by request of Mr. N. F. Murray and 

 myself, the society named it " Babbitt," in honor of the man who pro- 

 pagated it forty-four years ago ; a tardy tribute of a measure of justice 

 to the memory of a man whose life was much more for others than for 

 himself — late, for it came long years after a railroad accident had de- 

 prived him and those he left behind him, of his life. » 



My father, J. G. Laughlin, still living at College Springs, Iowa, has 

 an one of his orchards in Page county, fifteen hundred trees planted 

 twenty years ago. The orchard is mostly made up of the standard 

 varieties : Ben Davis, Winesap, Willow Twig, Jonathan, etc., with a 

 large number of trees of the Babbitt. His testimony is that the Bab- 

 bitt trees have up to date borne more per tree than the trees of any 

 other variety ; that the trees are in at least as good condition as any 

 others ; that the apples have sold for more per bushel than any others ; 

 and that where they are once sold they will sell easily ever afterward. 



My brother, J. B. Laughlin, still in the nursery business at the old 

 stand, bears a similar testimony as to the trees of the variety in his or- 

 chards. C. E. Babbitt, son of the man for whom the apple was named, 

 now living at College Springs, says that in his large old orchard they 

 are his best trees and his most profitable variety. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Tree, a very strong, large grower ; shoots large ; leaves very large ; 

 wood hard and tough. As a support for a load of apples it is mechan- 

 ically the best tree I know of. It scarcely forks at all, but throws out 

 its limbs in a shape and style peculiar to itself. Every limb has an un- 

 usual enlargement where it is joined to the tree or larger limb. I do 

 not remember ever having seen one split in any way. After forty- 

 two years' acquaintance, partly in each of three States in three different 

 latitudes, and growing from three distinctly different soils, I do not 

 hesitate to place myself on record as saying that it is one of the very 

 best trees in either nursery or orchard. 



