io8 HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK. 



peaches in the Continent, is something we cannot decide. There are 

 wild peach forests in Wisconsin and they could only have got there by 

 the Indians receiving them from the Mexican settlers about four hundred 

 years ago. Now, if these peaches have become as near indigenous as it 

 is possible for a foreign thing to come to in Tennessee, and have got 

 stamped on them the requirements of the American continent — if that 

 is the case, as I believe it is — why, it is the hardiest peach stock in Amer- 

 ica and in the world, outside of Manchuria. Doesn't it conflict then, 

 with Dr. Hansen's claim? Now, so far as I know, no other reason is 

 advanced for the extreme hardiness and vigor, so that nurserymen avail 

 themselves of it, of this peach stock of Tennessee, in this high ele- 

 vation. There is no reason for it except the fact that that elevation gives 

 it not longer than the historic history period — unless it is in the wild 

 peach of Wisconsin — I would like to have it explained. 



Dr. Hansen — In answer to the question : I would say I have tried 

 some of those hardy peach stocks and also the common peach pits. I 

 have had the hardy peaches of Iowa that they have been raising for 

 years from the hardiest stocks, and after a hard winter, I never discovered 

 any difiference. One might be deader than the other — they were both 

 dead ! I have had the French crab from the side hills of France, and 

 I have had the Vermont plant seedlings, and those from Vermont are 

 supposed to be the hardiest on the American Continent, but the same 

 observation could be applied to both ; they were both dead after a hard 

 winter. 



Mr. Macoun — Gentlemen, I regret very much I was too late to hear 

 this paper, because it is a subject I am very much interested in, but it 

 seems to me the question Dr. Hansen has brought up is a very complicated 

 one. The question of mere temperature alone, I think is a small factor 

 — not exactly a small factor, but it is only one of the factors regarding 

 hardiness. For instance, I understand experiments have been carried on 

 at places, among them, the Department of Agriculture, Washington, for 

 testing the seeds at different temperatures. Some were submitted to 

 very low temperatures and they survived the temperature. It seems to 

 me that the question of humidity, ripeness of wood and various other 

 causes also influence the hardiness of plants, and when we introduce plants 

 from over the seas, we do not know exactly the way they lived there. 

 We do not know whether they are woodland species or not. They may 

 be a species that thrived in very different conditions. We found in our 

 experience at Ottawa,- with our own native hemlock, when we trans- 

 planted it from woodlands where it thrived at home, that it is very difficult 

 to get it to thrive in the open, and in the case of four or five other trees, 

 I think they have shown a great deal more vigor than some other species 

 which correspond with them. There is the northern species P. excelsa. 

 We have no other tree which has a more rapid growth than the Norway 

 spruce, and no other which is less subject to disease. Then there is 

 the European which is much stronger than our own species, but I don't 



