66 THE NEW HORTICULTURE. 



CASPIANA, LA., Dec. 75, 1905. 

 H. M. STRINGFELLOW. 



Dear Sir Seeing your remarks in Farm and Ranch on your suc- 

 cess with Terry Winter Apple in sod, leads me to inquire why we are 

 now unable to grow winter apples here in the Red River Valley like 

 we did years ago. We live at Caspiana, La., twenty miles below 

 Shrevesport, and when we bought the plantation, just after the war, 

 found two large apple trees growing near a small house on the bank 

 of the river. They were different kinds, but both fine large apples, 

 one very red, and never failed to bear full crops. The ground was 

 never disturbed, and we had no trouble in keeping the fruit all through 

 the winter and often took samples to the Shrevesport merchants, who 

 said they were far superior, especially in quality, to any of the 

 imported apples. Finally, at their suggestion, we sent Stark Bros, 

 cuttings of both kinds, which we named Numbers i and 2, as nobody 

 could identify them, with an order to propagate one hundred trees. 

 They did so, and we planted them twenty feet apart, cultivated clean 

 ever since, until now the branches are lapping ; but, though about 

 fifteen years old and apparently perfectly healthy, we have never had 

 a single ripe apple. The trees bloom every spring, set full of fruit, 

 but all of it rots in midsummer and falls off. Shortly after sending 

 the wood to Stark Bros, a big rise in the river caused the bank to 

 cave, carrying away both of the old apple trees. Do you think clean 

 cultivation is the cause of the fruit rotting? 



Yours truly, 



A. E. HUTCHINSON. 



