The £Jnropean Inarch — Its Durabilify, 47 



to grow until 1843 or 1844, when she gave a number of the trees to a relative, Mr. 

 Rodolphus Chandler, who was then planting an orchard on the prairie, five miles east 

 of Warsaw. And this apple is the production of one of these trees. 



Mr. Chandler has for many years considered this the most profitable tree in his 

 orchard, and has top-grafted quite extensively from it. Tlie tree is a vigorous grower, 

 healthy and hardy, and an annual bearer of fruit, always fair and of uniform size. 

 The tree produced, the past year, twenty-five bushels of good marketable apples. It 

 is a late bloomer, blooming two or three days before the Kawls Jaiinet. 



I am not so well informed in relation to its keeping qualities, but Mr. Chandler 

 informs me that he has often kept them until April, which would indicate that they 

 are one of our best keepers. If it should prove to keep as well as the Ben Davis 

 and Willow Twig, it will be a great acquisition to our market list, as it is apparently 

 as hardy and productive, and greatly superior in quality to either of these varieties. 



The Warsaw Horticultural Society, at a late meeting, after a full discussion of the 

 subject, decided to name it Illinois Pippin. Perhaps we may be accused of presump- 

 tion in giving an apple, so little known, such a high-sounding name, yet we believe 

 that it will yet be an honor to the State that gave it birth. 



Warsaw, III. A. C. Hammond. 



The European Larch— Its Durability. 



BY ROBERT DOUGLAS, WAUKEGA.V, ILL. 



ED. Western Horticulturist: I read Professor Matthews' article in the May 

 number of the Fomologist, also G. B. B.'s reply to it in the September number 

 of The Horticulturist. I have not the May number at hand to quote from, but 

 give the substance of his argument, i. e. that the Euroi»ean Larch, as grown in 

 Europe, is a resinous tree, but as grown in this country it is not a resinous tree. 

 This theory, coupled with the fact that the Professor had cut down some larch sap- 

 lings and used them for grape stakes, and found that these saplings rotted off at the 

 surface of the ground within three years, led him to the conclusion that the Larch is 

 no more durable than the cottonwood. 



To bring this matter more clearly before your readers, I will make the following 

 quotations from Gr. B. B.'s article in the September number of The Horticul- 

 turist, whose experience is identical with the Professor's : " In the spring of 1860, 

 I imported a lot of European Larch from Scotland, and set them out in nursery rows 

 two feet apart, intending to transplant them in a year or two, but leaving home next 

 season, and being gone several years, the larch grew up a perfect thicket, twelve to 

 fifteen feet high. In 1867, on reading some of the fabulous accounts of the dura- 

 bility of the larch, and wishing for some vineyard stakes, I concluded to cut down 

 my beautiful grove or thicket of larch and use them for that purpose, thinking I 

 had got something that would last a lifetime; but lo ! I was sadly disappointed, for 

 only two years afterwards I found the stakes beginning to break off and decayed 

 near the surface of the ground, so I concluded that the best use I could put them to 

 would be to burn them for stove-wood; but here I was again disappointed, for I found 

 that it required more kindling wood to get them on fire than they were worth. 



