STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 275 



has been to try everything which our eastern friends had to offer, 

 and hold fast to that which was good. Unfortunately for our in- 

 terests, south Europe has very few varieties of the fruits which 

 will long survive in our climate, and the very few we have received 

 are really sirays from the east plain of Europe, or their seedlings, 

 grown on our own soil. 



As instances of real iron clads over broad expanses of our 

 prairies, all will think of the Duchess, Gros Pomier, Fameuse, 

 Drap de Or and Wealthy; all but one strays from the east plain, and 

 that one beyond doubt a seedling of the Duchess or Tetofsky. 



Of pears we have not one tree iron clad, and the nearest we have 

 — the Besi de la Motte and Flemish Beauty — are from Poland, on 

 the borders of the east plain, but modified by the breath of the gulf 

 stream. 



With cherries we are quite as unfortunate. The Dukes and Bigar- 

 reaus of the east utterly fail with us, and the early and late Kent- 

 ish and English Morello, in addition to short life of tree and irregu- 

 larity of bearing, are far lower in quality than any one of the 

 Griottes grown b}^ the train loads on the plains north of the Car- 

 pathians. 



As to plums, without thanks to our eastern friends or to south 

 Europe, we have been more fortunate, as Nature has provided us 

 with better native varieties than I know to exist elsewhere. 



Beyond doubt, we have lost millions of dollars, and an untold 

 amount of time and faith in unsystematic trial of fruits adapted to 

 more equable climes. Surely the time has come Avhen we should 

 unitedly give trial to fruits of like climates, so far as they are com- 

 mercially obtainable. Perhaps ultimately our favorite fruits will be 

 seedlings of those we first introduce ; but the only safe line of ex- 

 perimentation is based on the assumption that the future favorites 

 of our orchards of the apple, pear, and cherry, will come from cli- 

 mates fully as severe as ours, or will be the seedlings of such varie- 

 ties grown on our own soil. 



With the hope of aiding in this systematic experimental work, 

 so much needed, I will offer a few suggestions, based on a careful 

 study of the climate, soil, and fruits, of inter-continental Europe, 

 in the smmer of 1882. These hints are formulated on the well 

 known fact that every part of the Mississippi basin is subject to 

 extreme summer and winter varieties of temperature and humidity 

 of air, consequent upon the varying winds, and that trees for the 

 southern and middle sections of this basin must have all the re- 



