AIINOLD AUliOKKTUM. 217 



packer and stored in Lincoln. Our share of the boxed fruit found a 

 market in Lincoln in competition with western boxed apples at from $1.50 

 a box for Ben Davis and $2 to $2.25 per box for Jonathan and Winesap. 

 The barrel fruit stored in Omaha sold for from $2.50 to $3.75 per barrel for 

 Ben Davis, according to the grade. We were offered at harvest time $1 

 per 100 pounds for the crop placed on the grading table, but preferred to 

 pick and market it ourselves. The whole production sold at the lowest 

 prices offered for sprayed fruit would have sold for over $4,000. The older 

 part of the orchard (twenty acres) produced almost 10,000 bushels, or 500 

 bushels per acre. 



THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM OF BOSTON. 



One of the most interesting botanical collections in the world is in this 

 arboretum. The horticultural treasures of the world have been gathered 

 here. C. S. Sargent, who has written that colossal work, "The Sylva of 

 North America" has charge of it. Jackson Dawson, the world's greatest 

 propagator, is superintendent. Miracles seem to fall from his hands. I 

 do not know how many kinds of roses he has originated. He has a collec- 

 tion of 150 kinds of lilacs alone, and when you see them in bloom in the 

 genial climate of Massachusetts you are in Wonderland. The director, 

 Professor Sargent, has sent out many explorers. 



E. H. Wilson made four journeys into China for the arboretum. He 

 went about 700 miles into regions never traversed before. His trip was 

 brought to a sudden close by a broken leg occasioned by an earth avalanche. 

 He had to endure every kind of hardship and privation. 



He found mountains piled upon mountains. They were wedged and 

 crowded together, so the progress was exceedingly slow. There were 

 hardships and privations all along the way. Sometimes a tremendous 

 cloudburst would break upon them, and they would be drenched to the 

 skin. Sometimes they would find partial shelter in a rude hovel, which 

 would leak like a sieve and the earth floor would be a quagmire. But 

 finally he reached a marvelous region, filled with rare plants and trees. 

 He collected seeds of fifty kinds of conifers, and also secured 150 kinds of 

 shrubs and plants new to the horticultural world. Mr. Wilson says the 

 greatest surprise of the expedition was the discovery of an entirely new 

 kind of peach. What this discovery will amount to we can not tell at 

 present. It may be the mother of an entirely new race. Think of this 

 marvelous addition to the great park by one man. I have spent hours 

 wandering through these marvelous collections, often lying or sitting on 

 the ground and taking time for a careful survey. Here are all kinds of the 

 viburnum or snowball family— a long list of spireas and perhaps twenty 

 kinds of syringas among them, some new creations of Dawson's. If a man 

 wants to broaden himself in horticulture he should take his time and visit 

 these grounds when the different families of shrubs are in full bloom. He 

 will mourn that so many things which do well in the soft, humid climate 

 of the east can not be grown here, and he must shut out most of the 



