CHAPTER II. 



Hardiness of the Tree, and its Adapta- 

 bility to Latitudes. 



WHEN we speak of the hardiness of a tree, we 

 mean its ability to withstand all the vicissi- 

 tudes of the climate where the tree is to be grown. 

 Under certain conditions one tree will be hardy 

 while under a changed condition in the same 

 climate it will have all the characteristics of a 

 tender variety. In the black loamy bottom soils 

 of the Mississippi valley, even in the southern part 

 of Iowa and Illinois, the Wagner is too tender 

 for practical uses, while on the loess soils of the 

 Missouri valley, and on the highest lands in 

 northern Nebraska and Southern Dakota, it is 

 among the hardiest. These black mucky soils are 

 not adapted to apple growing in great variety. 

 There is an element lacking in these soils necessary 

 to the most perfect ripening and developing in the 

 tree, those qualities which underlie hardiness. 

 I am of opinion that there are at least 50 

 varieties of the apple that, so far as intense cold 

 is concerned, would thrive under other favorable 

 conditions at least as far north as latitude 44. I 



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