70 ANNUAL REPORT 



hose in other similar organizations, have not been at all times as 

 active and energetic in pushing investigations as could have been 

 wished, and we have lost many golden opportunities for producing 

 desired results, but let these adverse experiences be a guide to 

 more decided action in the future. 



Oliver Wendell Holmes has said, " that no man is so old but 

 that he expects to live a year." The true horticulturist with love 

 and enthusiasm implanted in his breast, is never so old but that he 

 exDects to live long enough to reap a benefit from whatever he 

 plants, and success in horticulture is for those only who will devote 

 energy and enterprise with continuous application. It is a calling 

 in which no lazy or indolent person will thrive. Persistency under 

 discouragement is one of the essential qualifications most needed 

 by all who expect to succeed in this extremely cold climate. There 

 is not a true horticulturist so old or so well versed in the art, that 

 he will not try something new each year, even though the mysteries 

 of growth and development are beyond his human perception. 

 None are so wise but they can learn something new each day. We 

 are all children in understanding the intricate laws of nature or 

 what constitute the elements of hardiness in this locality. 



Hardiness or capabilities of endurance with certainty. This 

 quality of all others is what the apple-tree growers have been 

 seeking the past quarter of a century, and the vital question that 

 even now perplexes and discourages amateurs and the veteran in 

 pomology alike, is, shall we ever produce fruit trees with vigorous 

 organisms sufficient to withstand the vicissitudes of this variable 

 temperature in the most favorable, and unfavorable of loca- 

 tions. When we think we have mastered this problem, and in our 

 own minds have solved this intricate question in growth by 

 hybridization and cross fertilization to produce hardiness, produc- 

 tiveness and ability to bear all kinds of exposure to our intense 

 climate, old nature comes along with a new and peculiar problem 

 that upsets all our finely adjusted theories and established facts. 

 Thus it has ever been in the past. It will always be so in the 

 future, unless we acquire more accurate insight into the law of 

 development, and use greater skill with closer inspection of the 

 first principles of propagation. A noted writer aptly says : " Na- 

 ture's laws alone are eternal and unchangeable, and, therefore, they 

 alone are authority. The opinions of man are as chaff unless they 

 conform to those laws, and it mutters not how long certain opinions 

 have been held, if they are formed in conflict with the laws of 

 creation. Instead, the very age of an error is its strongest con- 

 demnation; for in this period of increasing knowledge he has no 

 excuse who is so wedded to preconceived notions that he will not 

 learn the unerring facts, which proves his opinions to be but simply 

 baubles." A large proportion, we might say nearly all the failures 

 of our horticulturists, are attributable to their careless methods, 

 and ignorance of the first principles of plant growth. They have 

 disregarded some of those unerring principles that govern in some 

 particular point, consequently they have imperfect methods, and a 

 chief cause of failure with many is a want of acute, accurate obser- 

 vation, or that use we make of our senses in acquiring that very 



