42 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



to raise a bushel of good fruit (and cannot do it easier) than 

 a bushel of crabs, and who cannot sell them for more money? 

 Of what earthly use then is the crab-apple? Why do people 

 persist in buying them? Here comes in the question, Are 

 there any localities where common apples cannot be grown, 

 and crahs can? If you can find that place, there is the place 

 for the crabs. Unless you lind that locality I do not see any 

 reason for growing them. I hold in my hand a catak)gue of 

 fruit advertised by a prominent fruit grower. He is inserting 

 the Tetofsky as "an excellent apple," and entirely misrepre- 

 senting it. In connection with this subject, I wish to read a 

 brief Jirticle which I cut from the Maine Farmer of last week, 

 written by Dr. Iloskins of Orleans Co., Vermont; and you 

 know that is a section of the State where the winters are hard 

 and they find it difficult to grow man}' of the varieties of apples 

 which succeed well elsewhere : 



"Ckab-Stocks and Russian Apples. 



I read the letter of Mr. Smith of Monmouth in tlie hist Farmer with 

 much interest, and I wish to enforce what he says of the 'crab-stock 

 humbug,' with my own experience. It has got so in Vermont that a tree 

 agent says 'crab-stocks' to one of our fruit-growers ahnost at the risk of 

 his neck. And now, as I Judge from numerous letters of enquiry which I 

 receive, these pedlers, finding no market at home for their trees, are Hood- 

 ing over into Xew Hampshire, ]\rain(' and New Brunswick in crowds, and 

 defrauding many honest men Avith tlicir plausible talk. 



Let me say to your readers that the crab-stock has had a thorough trial 

 in the northern part of Vermont, rurming over a period of nearly twenty 

 years, and that the only result is utter failure. So far as I am informed 

 (and 1 liave probably as good a chance to know as any man), there is not, 

 from the tens of thousands of crab-grafted trees sold through the country 

 where I live, one single really successful orchard. The trees begin to fall 

 almost as soon as they come to bearing, and excepting a few cases where, 

 by deep planting, the trees have rooted above the graft, they rapidly be- 

 come unthrifty and die. The experience is very nearly that of pears on 

 the quince, only the failure is worse. In many cases not oidy is tlie tree 

 unhealthy, but the fruit seems to partake of the crabby nature of tlie stock 

 to the extent of being uneatable and unsalable. 



One point in Mr. Smith's letter, however, needs a little correction. 

 Twelve years ago I believed, like him, that the Northern Spy, Talman's 

 Sweet, Yellow BelUlower, and the Winthrop seedlings Moses Wood and 

 Fairbaid<s, were as hardy as the Russian apples. Duchess of Oldenburg, 

 Tetofsky and Alexander. This belief has been a costly one for me, and 



