144: ANNUAL REPORT. 



deem them to be excellent varieties; so also would we if we had never tasted any- 

 thing better. 



Bj'^ means of cross-breeding we can improve even the best known varieties of our 

 fruits. To accomplish this result it is only necessary to use our best sorts for the 

 male parent.* 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Smith. Mr. PefiFer takes the ground that the quality of Russian 

 fruits is of a much lower standard than of our best American seed- 

 lings, and that while we may perhaps gain something by the general 

 production and planting of Russian fruits, the apples of the future for 

 the Northwest must be produced from American seedlings, and not 

 from the propagation of these Russian varieties. 



Mr. Harris. I would like to hear from Mr. Sias on that question. 



Mr. Sias. My opinion is that we have no better fruits and better 

 quality of apples in the State than we find among those same Russian 

 yarieties. You may take, for instance, the White Transparent; I 

 don't know whether I have ever fruited anything that surpasses that 

 in quality; the Russian Green is hard to beat. I have several other 

 varieties of very fine quality. I have not seen any native seedling 

 varieties that surpass them; there may be some in the Northwest 

 somewhere, but if so, I have not seen them. 



Mr. Tuttle. It is a little singular that Mr. PefiFer should take that 

 position at this late day. There was a time when that was the general 

 cry. I don't know where, and I would like to be informed where the 

 American seedlings are that have been originated in the Northwest 

 that would compare in quality with those of the Russians. We have 

 to fill the place of all those old varieties that we have heretofore been 

 depending upon. And we have Russian apples to fill their place, as 

 market apples, as to quality and as to productiveness. I defy any 

 man to take the same number of American seedlings and compare 

 with the Russians in these respects. If anything, I should say that 

 the Russian apples are the better apples; they are better in quality. 

 We have a large number of those apples of diflFerent qualities; for 

 instance, there is the White Transparent, an early apple. That has 

 been fruited more generally and is better known, both east and west, 

 and it stands to-day ahead of any early apple grown east or west. I 

 would like Mr. Pefifer to mention an apple that would compare with 



*Mr. Peffcr states in a private note that he has only briefly referred to cross-fertilization in this 

 paper, since the process is more minutely described in some of the earlier volumes of the transactions 

 of the Society.— Secretary. 



