322 ANNUAL REPORT 



pear. On the thinner soils farther north all forest trees are in- 

 clined to be small and scrubby, and the orchard trees make not 

 much of a show of trunk or top when thirty years old. If Mr. 

 Phcenix has said these hardiest of the Russian trees have a trace of 

 Siberian crab in them he has been misinformed. Clias. Gibb, the 

 well-known horticulturist of Abbottsford, Canada, was with me, and 

 often expressed surprise that the Siberian crab was so little known 

 in any part of Russia, and that no kind of crab was common. 

 Often the wild apple trees are found of large size, and with nicely- 

 rounded tops, in the fields, but their wood and leaves more nearly 

 resemble our wild apple than the Siberian. The fruit is about the 

 size of our wild crabs, red or yellow, hard and austere for eating, 

 but when cooked they have none of the astringency of the Pirus 

 Coronaria. 



(4). I do not believe we will ever have an apple tree wholly free 

 from blight when mingled with the crabs. In Iowa I am not 

 alone in the belief that the whole crab tribe should be rooted out. 

 The Duchess is a Simbirsk apple. We can get from there fifty 

 sorts as free from blight, but none more so. J. L. BUDD. 



LETTEB FROM MR. PEFFER. 



Pewaukee Fruit Farm and Nursery, 



Pewaukee, Wis., March 13, 1883. 

 Oliver Gibbs, Jr., Secretary Minnesota State Horticultural Society. 

 My Dear Friend: * * * I have returned from our southern 

 trip, where we attended the Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society 

 convention, at New Orleans, two weeks ago, and observed that 

 parts of the States of Tennessee and Mississippi are no more 

 successful in raising apples than Wisconsin and Minnesota. I 

 saw large orchards, trees ten to twelve years old, all dead; and 

 conversing with one of the delegates about it, he said that the 

 trees grow well when young, but as soon as they get to bearing 

 they die. I asked the reason, but he could not give me any, but 

 said that they got a few native seedlings that have proved product- 

 ive and are yet healthy, and are over forty years old, and he pro- 

 poses to propagate from them. I advised him to use the seeds from 



