STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 333 



poor little apple. I have a sample of the wood. You will see this wood 

 looks all right. I have several varieties bat little better so far as pro- 

 ductiveness is concerned. My observations have not been confined to 

 my own grounds or locality. I have traveled extensively, and with 

 my eyes open. Surely, our experience has been great enough and 

 costly enough to decide us against a further trial of New Russians. 



Of the origin of the Duchess we are not told. In 18S2, when Prof. 

 Budd was at Kazan, on the Volga, he wrote that he had doubts about 

 its being a full-blood Russian, although he saw a large list of its type. 

 It seems to me that he was at those northeast points too late in the 

 season. It may be that if he did see the trees, he did not recognize 

 them under their changed condition. Kazan is about five hundred 

 miles east of Moscow, and half way between the Caspian sea and the 

 Arctic ocean: eleven degrees north of St. Paul, and nearly at the ex- 

 treme northern limit of apple-growing in that direction. But, irre- 

 spective of its origin, it has proved to be the most valuable tree known 

 on this or any other continent for us to raise a race of acclimatized 

 seedling trees from. In 1882 that old Western pomologist, F. R. Phoe- 

 nix, wrote for this Society an essay of about 6,000 words on " Hardy 

 Apples From Seed." The article was ably written throughout, but 

 the gist of it, as applied to us, was: "Raise your apple trees from 

 seeds of Duchess." His views were warmly indorsed by Harris, Dartt 

 and Gibbs. 



About twenty years ago Col. D. A. Robertson, at that day the most 

 eminent authority in the State, advised me to go to raising seedlings 

 from Duchess, and, although we have had the world, the flesh and the 

 New Russian apples to contend with, we have made some advance. 



Our friend Harris has often advised us to raise seedlings. Our pres- 

 ident in his last annual address said : " Should we not rather seek for 

 hardy varieties among our own native seedlings ? " 



That great and good man, preeminent in pomology, the late Mar- 

 shall P. Wilder, writing upon this subject, said : " The immense loss 

 to American cultivators from the importation of foreign varieties * 

 * * suggests the importance of raising from seed native sorts, which 

 in most instances possess peculiar advantages. I am confirmed in the 

 opinion that the best means of producing new and excellent varieties 

 suited either to general cultivation or to particular localities, is to 

 plant the most mature and perfect seeds of the most hardy, vigorous 

 and valuable sorts, on the general pathological principle that like pro- 

 duces like. The skillful agriculturist saves the best seed of his vari- 

 ous crops and selects the best animals from his herds for breeders. 



