STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 255 



Mr. Underwood. We had better send Mr Dartt as a delegate to 

 Iowa while we get up a list. 



Mr. Gilpatrick. I don't want him to go. 



Mr. Pearce. I am ashamed of Mr. Dartt. When we say for " gen- 

 eral cultivation " we mean, of coarse, in favorable localities. That 

 applies in every state in the Union; a man who is going to set an or- 

 chard, whether in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois or in this State, will not 

 set it where it will be of no value. Put Duchess in favorable locali- 

 ties and it will stand. 



Now, those other varieties have stood in most unfavorable 

 places for fourteen years; in one place that I know of where every 

 common variety failed, and are still standing and yielding crops 

 of fruit. One tree yielded six bushels of apples. Put the same tree 

 on favorable ground and it would do much better. I refer to Mr. 

 Peterson ; his trees stand on unfavorable ground, and yet they have 

 come through all these test winters and have never killed a particle; 

 and now our friend Dartt has the impudence to get up here and say : 

 "Cut them all off." 



Mr. Dartt. Mr. President, I perhaps ought to say a few words. If 

 I have been '* impudent " of course it has been in questioning the 

 hardiness or the durability of the larch. I have been called to ac- 

 count for disputing the hardiness of the Wealthy for all localities. 

 Notwithstanding you sent me to Iowa, you have found it to be a fact 

 that its hardiness was at least questionable. 



Now, sir, whether we have progressed or not, it is a fact that this 

 Society ought not to recommend one thing to the people of our State 

 they do not know to be reliable, and something that will grow under 

 ordinary circumstances, and produce fruit in sufficient quantities and 

 of a quality to be valuable for cultivation. When that is accom- 

 plished we will have established the ends of a reliable list, and by so 

 doing merit the confidence of the people of the State But if we 

 jump to conclusiotis for the sake of making people believe we are pro- 

 gressing we are doing what is unwarranted, we will have another set- 

 back in the future and the result will do us no good. Impudence! 

 Where is the impudence in telling the straight truth? [Applause.] 



Mr. Thompson. Mr. President, I can hardly sit still and keep 

 quiet. It appears that my friend Mr. Dartt is backsliding a little, 

 since I roomed with him at Dubuque; he has changed considerable. 

 I came up here expecting to find some good soil, and I still believe 

 there is. He talks about favorable localities. To cut the story short, 

 if you will set your Duchess on a soil that has bituminous clay for a 



