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or better keeping variety, would naturally partake of the hardier qualities 

 of the parent tree. As you suggest in your previous letter, it is a question 

 of great importance, and while some of our experts in fruit culture deny it, 

 I think the best class of them admit the fact. It has proved so with pear 

 culture; I can see no reason why it should not with the apple. 



Very respectfully yours, 



W. H. B. CURRIEK. 



To corroborate the above statements, we would refer to Coles 

 fruit book, published in 1849. There described as follows : 

 Red Russet-Large ; flattish round ; Russet, half covered with 

 red; flesh firm, crispy, juicy, of pleasant rich flavor. Late 

 winter and spring, great grower and bearer, new and promis- 

 ing. It seems to be a cross between the Baldwin and Roxbury 

 Russet. Origin, farm of Mr. Aaron Sanborn, Hampton 

 Falls, N. H. 



Believing as we do that if the theory of cross grafting is cor- 

 rect much good may result therefrom, and believing in ihe old 

 saying that experience is the best school master, we have en- 

 tered largely into the subject of inquiry of those who have had 

 experience in the cultivation of fruit, particularly those who 

 have grafted trees that were in bearing. We find other cases 

 not very much unlike the origin of the Red Russet. 



Sometime last winter an article was published in one of the 

 Boston papers saying there had recently been a meeting of the 

 Massachusetts Horticultural society in Boston, and the subject 

 of cross grafting had been discussed for the third time, and 

 that apples had been received from Mr. George P. Eastman, of 

 South Hadley, a variety said to have originated by a cross of 

 the Baldwin and Roxbury Russet, and we were informed that 

 they were pronounced at that meeting to be the Red Russet. 



We immediately wrote to Mr. Eastman for information on 

 the subject, and soon after received the following reply : His 

 father many years ago planted a nursery and budded or grafted 

 it with various kinds of fruit. Finding a deficiency of Bald- 

 wins, he grafted or budded a portion of the Russets with 

 Baldwins. When the trees commenced bearing, one braucli of 

 a Baldwin tree bore Russets ; that branch was removed that 



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