54 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Yet, with all these forbidding facts staring at us, there never 

 has been, within the history of apple raising in the country, 

 more anxious investigation of the subject of orcharding and 

 the production of good apples than at the present time. At 

 a period when in all the older States the orchards planted by 

 the original settlers are shoAving unmistakable signs of being 

 bej'ond the age of profitable fruit bearing, and are falling be- 

 fore the farmer's axe, or are being pulled up by the roots, 

 and their venerable trunks and wide-spreading branches con- 

 sumed by fire or hauled away to some by-spot to rot inglo- 

 riously, the demands of the countr}^ and the world at large, 

 make it a question of great moment to the intelligent and as- 

 piring farmer, whether he will plant new orchards to replace 

 the old and dead ones, and supply the growing necessities for 

 fine apples, or resort for a livelihood to other special courses 

 of farming, or to growing a variety of products such as enter 

 into the general wants of the country. 



It will be readily admitted by all, that there is a genuine 

 demand for large supplies of fruit trees to replenish or take 

 the place of the exhausted and dying orchards of our State, 

 and the facts implied in the brief glance I have taken at the 

 history of the Western tree business here, will, I trust, be 

 kept in mind, while I enter upon the discussion of a new 

 departure in the history of apple tree planting. 



About four years since, the tree agents commenced the sale 

 of a new kind of apple trees under the name of "Russian." 

 This title implied, and it was distinctly claimed, that the 

 trees bearing that name had their origin in Russia in Europe, 

 in high latitudes ; and from this fact, they were supposed to 

 have a greater degree of hardiness or ability to withstand the 

 occasional extremes of cold and sudden change of tempera- 

 ture characteristic of our climate, so frequently fatal to all 

 trees of tender constitution. The first named kinds which I 

 remember to have seen were the Tetofsky and Pewaukee. 

 Since the advent of these we have had quite a large list of 

 trees introduced to notice as a class of hardy trees, which are 

 claimed to be more valuable for our use than any of our 



