The Canadian Horticulturist. 8i 



apples with profit ? Evaporators have done wonders for the fruit crops in 

 certain counties of New York State, but the true solution of the problem was in 

 constructing co-operative cold storehouses, that could hold from 10,000 to 

 20,000 barrels of apples each. There the fruit could be kept until markets were 

 bare, and shipped where prices were satisfactory. Possibly such large store- 

 houses would even bring foreign buyers. Apple growing should pay better 

 than orange growing. In all the best markets of the world a good red apple 

 brings more money than an orange. The Nicaragua Canal will knock the 

 bottom out of California orange growing, and apple orchards will pay better 

 than orange groves, if properly handled and sold. 



Are novelties worth their cost ? was the suject of an address by Prof. Bailey, 

 who answered affirmatively, because old varieties of fruits are constantly being 

 crowded out by new ones ; not because the old run out, for they may be propa- 

 gated indefinitely by grafting and slipping, but because the new are better, being 

 required for various conditions of climate and soil. Novelties must pay, there- 

 fore, if horticulture is to pay ; not all of them, of course, but a certain per- 

 centage. The older the type, the less hope for improvement from seeds, sowing 

 and hybridizing, and less in old localities than in new, because in the former 

 this line has already well worked out. 



u In what consists the injury to roots of dormant trees by freezing ? was a ques- 

 tion answered by Prof. Beach, to the effect that, in freezing, the crystals of ice 

 formed outside the minute cell-walls — drawing the water slowly from the interior 

 of them ; but, in sudden thawing, the water was set free too rapidly to be re- 

 absorbed, and hence the injurious effects. 



The value of the Abundance and other Botan plutns for general planting, was 

 discussed. The Botan is a general name for a family of plums from Japan, and 

 the Abundance is one of them. Mr. S. D. Willard had tried them and was 

 convinced they were worth planting, still he advised further testing before plant- 

 ing largely. The Burbank is better than the Abundance, and so is the Yellow 

 Japan. The class is valuable, productive and hardy, and has a good market 

 value ; other classes bloom too early and are often cut off, or otherwise injured. 

 Some people like the flavor of the Abundance and consider it equal in quality 

 to Lombard ; the skin is thin and the fruit must be handled carefully. These 

 plums are little affected with the knot, but are equally subject to curculio, with 

 other plums. 



The Burbank is not an early ripening plum ; Mr. Willard exhibits it in 

 September. He had enough confidence in it to plant four hundred trees. The 

 Ogon is the poorest of the lot in quality. No one cares to eat it out of hand, 

 but canned, it is very fine. In Japan they eat these plums green, while the pits 

 are still soft. 



Mr. J. H. Hale thought there was great promise in these Japan varieties, 

 because they were better shippers than the European varieties, beautiful in 

 appearance, and good enough in quality ; except the Ogon, which he humorously 

 compared to a cross between a Kieffer pear and a seed cucumber. 



