68 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



house and fertilizing. He sowed the seeds immediately on their 

 ripening. 



Charles M. Hovey questioned the correctness of the date (1832) 

 given by Mr. Moore, of the destruction of Baldwin apple and other 

 trees. He was under the impression that it was in 1835. 



Robert Manning said that the notices in the " New England 

 Farmer " all through the spring of 1832, by Mr. Lowell and others, 

 of the great injury to fruit trees the previous winter, establish the 

 correctness of the date given by Mr. Moore. 



Mr. Hovey had been pleased with Mr. Moore's paper, and 

 especially with the requisites which he had laid down for new 

 fruits — vigor, strength of constitution, and hardiness. The point 

 as to hardiness, particularly, was well put. Why should half 

 hardy rhododendrons and similar plants, which require covering, 

 be called hardy? To be classed as hardy, plants should be able to 

 stand in the average of years ; it would not be just to deny the 

 hardiness of plants because they were killed in an exceptionally 

 cold winter, as grapes, etc., were here in 1857, and hollies, rhodo- 

 dendrons, and laurestinus in England in 1861. So with straw- 

 berries — those which require covering cannot be strictly termed 

 hardy. He did not wholly believe in the view that a fruit must be 

 a native of a given locality to be adapted to cultivation there. 

 The Seckel and Bartlett pears, and the Red Astrachan, Graven- 

 stein, Baldwin, and Rhode Island Greening apples do well every- 

 where. To be worthy of being added to the list a fruit should be 

 an improvement over all others in some points, and should not 

 require peculiarities of culture or location. The Lawrence pear, 

 though possessing many valuable characteristics, is not adapted 

 to market, from the delicacy of its skin, and some strawberries, it 

 is well known, though of fine quality, cannot possibly be carried 

 to market, from their extreme softness. We must raise a vast 

 number of seedlings to select from them such as shall be truly 

 valuable. 



President Parkman inquired whether, in raising seedlings, seed 

 should be selected not only from fruit of fine quality, but fi'om 

 fine specimens. 



Mr. Hovey believed that the cause of the inferior quality of 

 seedling fruits might be in the selection of seed from the largest 

 and most watery specimens. He thought this probably the case 

 with some of Mr. Clapp's seedling pears, and accounted in the 



