424 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



to cross two varieties, applying the pollen of one to the pistils of 

 another when in bloom, and then planting the ripened seeds of the 

 latter. 



The trees produced in all these cases are seedlings, in horticultural 

 language; and as a general rule the tendency is to revert to the original 

 wild type, with vigorous, rough wood and austere fruit. But occasion- 

 ally a tine variety is obtained, and once in a long while a variety of 

 surpassing excellence, like the Celestia apple, Grosse Mignonne peach, 

 or Seckel pear. 



Many — perhaps most — of the choice fruits have been obtained in 

 the first- mentioned way. " Dutch Jacob," as he was called, found the 

 Seckel in full bearing when on one of his annual hunting expeditions, 

 on a tract of wild land bordering on the Delaware, near Philadelphia, 

 over a hundred years ago. Stuart's Golden apple was among a lot of 

 other promiscuous seedlings planted in the orchard of the late William 

 Stuart, in Southeastern Ohio ; and was the only valuable apple of the 

 lot. Eome Beauty was originally a sprout which came out below the 

 graft among a lot of trees purchased from the old Putnam nursery at 

 Marietta, Ohio ; and as fruit trees were scarce then, and as both graft 

 and sprout had roots, the two were cut apart and planted out, and this 

 sprout from the seedling root became the famous Eome Beauty apple. 

 Teas' Weeping mulberry, one of the most beautiful weeping trees, and 

 considering its great hardiness, the best, was discovered in a row of 

 seedling Kussian mulberries, in Jasper county, Mo. 



Many choice fruits have been obtained by the second method ; by 

 Knight, Van Mons and others in Europe, and more recently bypomol- 

 ogists in the United States. The late L. E. Berckmans, and his son P. J. 

 Berckmans, the President of the American Pomological Society, have 

 received some choice varieties of the peach in Georgia. The success 

 of the late Dr. Kirtland, of Cleveland, O., with cherries is well known. 

 The late Eeuben Eagan, of Indiana, raised a number of choice apples 

 from seeds of the Bawles' Janet, for which he seems to have had a 

 partiality in common with many others. Dr. Stayman, of Leavenworth, 

 Kansas, has had marked success with seeds of the Winesap. One of 

 his varieties, Stayman's Winesap, is twice the size of the parent and 

 even better in quality, though hardly as highly colored. Celestia, one 

 of the finest of all apples, was raised by Dr. L. S. Mote, of Miami county, 

 Ohio, from seed of the Stillwater Sweet, a tree of which grew near a 

 tree of the Yellow Belleflower, which must have supplied the fertilizing- 

 pollen, as Celestia shows characteristics of both. The late Thaddeus 

 Clapp and his brother Frederick, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, raised 

 some choice pears, chief of which are Clapp's Favorite and Frederick 



