OLD PRIMITIVE ORCHARDS. 71 



appeared upon the stage to captivate those rustic growers 

 with visions of early fruit. And while on its face there may 

 seem to be some show of reason in this theory of climatic 

 change as the cause for all this acknowledged inferiority and 

 decay, yet when examined in the cold light of statistical 

 climatology and actual experience, it crumbles, a baseless 

 fabric, to the ground. The records, from the earliest times, 

 show no material change in average temperature or rainfall 

 between then and now, and we still have, here and there, all 

 over the country, strong, vigorous and productive old seed- 

 ling trees, like the Sudduth pear in Illinois, and the Arkansas 

 Mammoth Black-Twig apple, which show beyond all doubt 

 that in certain places, and under certain conditions, it is still 

 possible to grow apple and pear trees fit companions to those 

 of long ago, and which tower among the fruit trees of to-day, 

 like Saul among his brethren, head and shoulders above them 

 all. These hale old mementos of by-gone days are living 

 witnesses against the theory of climatic change, for C. M. 

 Stark, of Missouri, in American Garden of January, says : 

 "The original Mammoth Black-Twig apple tree is still stand- 

 ing near Rhea's Mill, in Washington county, Arkansas, and 

 bearing fruit, and at the recent meeting of the State Horti- 

 cultural Society of that state, at Fayettville, there was an ex- 

 hibit of apples from this tree labeled, 'M. B.-Twig, from the 

 original tree, sixty-five years old, two feet eight inches in 

 diameter 2^ feet above the ground." And yet, just across 

 the state line in Kansas, the well-known king of apple grow- 

 ers, Mr. Frank Wellhouse, the owner of 1,200 acres of trees, 

 plants sixteen feet apart in the rows, because in twelve or 

 fifteen years he finds that his long-rooted, well sprayed and 

 cultivated trees, standing on thoroughly prepared ground, 

 cease to pay. 



These being some of the facts in the case, what is the true 

 answer to the New York Legislature's call last year for infor- 

 mation as to the acknowledged decadence of modern orchards, 

 especially the apple ? It will not do to talk apologetically, in 

 explanation of repeated crop failures, about the great number 

 of fungous enemies, late frosts, dry seasons, chilling winds 



