STATE HORTICULTUBAL SOCIETY. 125 



or we would not have so many varieties in the world. In the 

 natural process of reproduction by seedlings, there is rarely any 

 multiplying of the same varieties, owing to the mixings in the 

 blossoms of different sorts, yet it is possible to make trees 

 produce by their seedlings exactly their like in fruit. Isola- 

 tion from other sorts of fertilizing pollen of any similar 

 species, at the time when the flower-buds are ready to break 

 open, is all that there is to be guarded against, and any tree 

 that is blossoming in an orchard or garden, where no others 

 of same species are near it, or, at least, so far away that no insects 

 could carry pollen to it, will produce its like in fruit if the seeds 

 are saved and planted; because the pistils will be fertilized from 

 the pollen in the same flower. As an example showing the truth 

 of this statement, I will give the following: 



In the early days of Wisconsin settlement I knew of an orchard 

 that was planted with small, one year old apple trees, the land 

 was only cleared that spring; it was in 1843, and there was not 

 room to put them all in orchard rows; so the most of them were 

 planted in a nursery row, about twelve to eighteen inches apart. 

 The land was white oak openings and was quite stumpy. Many 

 of the little trees were destroyed by the plow, and by rabbits, and 

 browsing from cattle, and but few were saved to be old enough to 

 bear; but in the year 1849, one of them had a few dozen apples on, 

 which were the Grey Gilliflower. Mr. Hilliard, the owner, gave 

 me a few specimens of the apples to take home for a treat to wife 

 and children. We saved the seeds. Eleven seeds were planted; 

 eight of them grew; we set the seedlings out when two years old. 

 In 1856, two of them bore apples, and they were the same as the 

 fruit of the parent tree. The next year the old tree hung full of 

 apples, and Mr. Hilliard brought us a dozen more. We planted 

 these seeds also, and one of the trees bore fruit the same year as 

 the first lot (1856,) but these seeds had got pollenized by some 

 other variety, and the apples varied in character, some in shape, 

 some in size, and some in quality. 1!n other words the apples from 

 trees grown from the seeds of 1849, were all alike; from 1850, all 

 different. There was no other tree in bloom in the vicinity of the 

 Grey Gilliflower, when its crop of 1849 was set; but the next year, 

 three or four of the adjacent trees of other sorts had come into 

 blossoming, though they did not bear fruit, and their blossoms 

 had pollenized those of the Grey Gilliflower, and the mixed and 

 changed character of the progeny from seeds of that year was the 



