APPLES. 297 



I wish to say further that so far as my reading goes it is not proved 

 that the mother parent, in all cases, in plants or in animals, will 

 stamp its characteristics upon the leaves or blossoms of progeny. I thinlc 

 if you gentlemen will look over this matter of animals and plants breed- 

 ing, you will discover that the parent whose character is most prominent 

 will be the one that will stamp itself indelibly upon the offspring. Tak- 

 ing the view of the subject that the gentleman did when he dropped that 

 remark about the female parent, I will say that I began in 1859 to plant 

 the seeds of the Duchess of Oldenburg, and it was from that first plant- 

 ing that I secured this Greening apple that you gentlemen know some- 

 thing about. I believe from looking carefully at the apple and comparing 

 it with the Ehode Island Greening, that it is a cross with that 

 variety. Now, I wish to go back farther. In this work that I have 

 been engaged in, I observed a good many years ago that the apples 

 we had, the American varieties, were running in families. After read- 

 ing Downing and others, I concluded that the Russet family was, perhaps, 

 the most striking family among all we had. 



Twelve years ago this present autumn, J bought a car load of apples 

 from the Wisconsin state university farm. Among those were some very 

 fine Russets, of the Perry and English Russet varieties. I planted the 

 seeds of those. My first thought was that the English Russet was, per- 

 haps, the most important member of that family of Russets. When those 

 seedlings were four years old I transplanted them, and somewhat to my 

 surprise and yet not as much as it would have been had I not studied the 

 subject considerablj' — I found the Perry Russet, according to the number 

 of plants that I had grown, had produced more hardy seedlings than the 

 Duchess of Oldenberg. Now, that is a statement that you gentlemen 

 will be surprised at. I was somewhat surprised at it myself, but I have 

 long since concluded that the Duchess of Oldenburg is not a Russian 

 apple but a German apple, coming from the province of Oldenburg, and 

 that all the varieties of that apple that were introduced into Poland and 

 Russia were descendants of that Duchess of Oldenburg, and have grown 

 poorer as they have passed to that land where the climate rather forbids a 

 high quality of fruit. I believe most firmly, and I have written a great 

 many pages in which I took this ground, that the greatest mistake of the 

 horticulturists of the Northwest was the fact that they did not, after the 

 winters of 1S75 and 1876, plant the seeds of the varieties that had endured 

 our climate during that period. Many of them were Russets. These 

 Russets have fruited. 



I take the position that if we have winter apples we must plant the 

 seeds of apples that have the keeping qualities in them; otherwise, we can- 

 not expect to get them. I simply call your attention to this matter, be 

 cause I believe it is the most important work for the horticulturists of 

 this entire Northwest — the cultivation of hardy fruits. I wish to sug- 

 gest further, that in the work we take the better class of Russians. Some 

 of them are more hardy than the Duchess, for instance, one of the Anis 

 apples. We have some of the early sweet apples that are still more hardy 

 than the Duchess, a ad we have many apples that are of good quality for 

 dessert purposes. It is to those apples that we must look, and with which 

 we must work. (Applause.) 



