166 ANKUAL REPOET. 



successfully grown, and in many portions this freezing and jthawing during the 

 whole winter is similar to what we have in the spring. 



There is one other reason given for the destruction of our trees, coming from 

 such high authority and accepted by a very large class of planters that I must not 

 fail to notice. It is the claim made by the dishonest tree peddler, that the reason 

 trees kill is because they are grafted in the root, and that trees budded above the 

 surface of the ground will be perfectly hardy. Anyone knows who has had any 

 experience with seedlings exposed above the surface of the ground, that not one in 

 a thousand will prove hardy, and that the seedling root placed below the ground 

 will be much more likely to live than when exposed above the surface. The seed- 

 ling in the root graft has the same protection we give tender vines and shrubs when 

 we cover them with earth; and then too the hardy cion most of it placed below the 

 surface Avill send out roots that will ensure the life of the tree though the seedling 

 root should kill. 



There always will be probably these traveling sharks prowling over the country 

 doing a large business by pure unadulterated lying. They are even now selling 

 new Russian fruits that they have not even learned the names of, at exorbitant 

 prices. 



An eastern concern has made itself notorious by claiming to sell stock of budded 

 trees grown at Sparta, Wisconsin. Whether budded or grafted I am unable to say, 

 but that they were grown at Sparta, Wisconsin, we have positive proof that they 

 were not. I have less respect for a Wisconsin nurseryman who will lend himself to 

 carry on this swindle than I have for the cheap actors in it. 



Some twenty years ago I wrote an article on "Orcharding in Wisconsin." It was 

 given as my opinion in that article that the very extreme and long continued cold of 

 some of our winters was the principle cause of injury, and now after the lapse of a 

 quarter of a century carefully noting the effect of the extremes we have passed, I 

 am still of that opinion. Every cold winter when we have had many days in suc- 

 cession of very extreme cold, and when some of these days the mercury did not rise 

 above twenty below zero at midday, I have always found injury soon to follow. In 

 every case the extreme cold winters have been those most destructive. If we place 

 a foliage plant in the open air with the thermometer at zero, it is soon killed and 

 we do not hesitate to say it froze to death; so too all agree that the peach kills at 

 about twenty degrees below, and that it is killed by severe freezing. The Baldwin, 

 Greening or Spitzenburg apple kills in a dry atmosphere with about the same degree 

 of cold that destroys the peach. 



The winter of 1884 and 1885 was one of extreme cold. Varieties that we had 

 hitherto considered safe to plant were badly used up. I have no doubt that it was 

 from extreme and long continued cold, and yet I am equally confident that there 

 are certain conditions of soil and location and of the state of this, consequent upon 

 those conditions that tend to increase or modify the effects of extreme cold. 



From what source are to come good fruits sufficiently hardy to flourish in our 

 climate? Some claim our only hope is from seedlings produced upon our own soil. 

 For forty years we have been planting seeds of Duchess and other hardy apples, and 

 how stands the account to-day? There is not a tree of the thousands produced that 

 can be said to be as hardy as Duchess unless crossed with the crab and have enough 

 of the crab in them to reduce their size and spoil them for market apples, 



