STATE HORTICULTUKAL SOCIETY. 347 



the seed Avas taken and those three only from four to six weeks, 

 though the crop was often made with varieties differing widely in 

 seasons of ripening. To begin we had no data from which to start. 

 It was test and try, solve our own problems, as to what to use and 

 where to get it, and how to use it afterwards. And now with a good 

 selection to start with and a knowledge how to use it, we are fairly 

 started in a pursuit for more and better, and the past is a guar- 

 antee that our most sanguine hopes cannot prove a failure. That 

 all the seedlings will prove hardy is not expected, nor is it expect- 

 ed that all the hardy ones will produce first-class apples, but we 

 anticipate a better yield of good varieties than ever had before, 

 from the fact that none but good varieties are set in the orchard; 

 nothing there to adulterate as was formerly the case. 



But it may be asked, why not all the seedlings prove good? In 

 answer I would say, our iron-clads are all a mass of mongrels, the 

 good are a selection of the best from a promiscuous mass of crosses, 

 and inherent in the nature of all mongrels is to run back to origi- 

 nals, hence under the most favorable circumstances there will be 

 more or less running back toward the original Siberian crab in 

 fruit as well as in tree. In fact the hardness of the crab tree 

 is what we want in the cross, with the size and quality of fruit of the 

 best of our choice large apples, with just enough of the commingling 

 of the crab qualities to gve a peculiar lusciousness. whether to eat 

 from hand or in sauce, that no other apple has. Therefore not far 

 distant in the future we anticipate a full supply the year round for 

 the Northwest, and of better quality than any yet on the list. The 

 Wealthy was from the seed of the Little Cherry crab, an accidental 

 cross with some larger apple, getting the hardiness of tree from the 

 crab, and the size of fruit from the large apple, and in quality, a 

 commingling of the best qualities of the two. 



Certain the Wealthy when made into sauce, it is crab, and not 

 surpassed nor equaled by any except some of our crab crosses. 

 Hence our unwavering faith that still better may be produced by 

 the process of crossing and recrossing, ever retaining the best, and 

 culling out the more inferior. 



We once planted seed from a crab tree that was surrounded by 

 Blue Pearmain trees that were in bloom at the same time of the 

 crab from which the seed were taken, and the result- was no two 

 exactl}'' alike in tree or fruit in a lot of 250. Some showed Blue 

 Pearmain in tree and leaf, yet hardy as a crab, whilst others were 

 crab in tree and leaf, yet occasionally one too tender to stand a 

 hard winter, the fruit varying in size from large to very small acd 



