ISO 



THE POMOLOGIST. 



October 



Fair of the Iowa State Hortic'l Society. 



The Fmirlh Aunnal Fair of llie Iowa 

 State Horticultural Society was held at Keo- 

 kuk, Sept. 12lh to IGih. 



ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT MATHEWS. 



Ladies and Oentlemen of the Iowa State Horikul 



tural Society : 



Such periodical gatherings or social feasts of 

 the agriculturist, the horticulturist and the 

 fruit culturist, as tliis, to celebrate the varied 

 annual returns of their toils, are not in the in- 

 ventions of yesterday nor practice of modern 

 times only, but so ancient as to be almost coe- 

 val with the productions of grains, vegetables, 

 fruits and flowers, upon the earth. Indeed ibeir 

 antiquity has rendered them well nigh sacred 

 to the gieat laboring classes who compose the 

 bone and sinew, the essential foundation and 

 support of all countries. 



While atrriculture, horticulture and pomolo- 

 gy have their separate spheres and modes of op- 

 eration, set the important interests they sever- 

 ally represent are so inseparably connected, in- 

 terwoven and entwined together, that like the 

 vines which have erown and extended their 

 brauchet, and twisfed their numerous tendrils 

 a'ouud the limbs and loliage of adjacent trees, 

 their separation is impossible withjut lutlicliug 

 serioas injury to all. For this reason it is for- 

 tunate that the Iowa State Atcricultural and 

 Horticultural Societies have taken a correct 

 view of the matter and united their periodical 

 fairs or exhibitions of their several produc- 

 tions. 



While I am quite sure that one of these au- 

 tumnal festivalK in the West, must be seen to 

 be appreciated, and therefore I would not un- 

 dertake a description ; I cannot in this connec- 

 tion relraiu from making a quotation from one 

 of our best American writers and naturalists, 

 whose graphic delineation of what a New Eng- 

 land fair was thirty years ago, may not be unin- 

 teresting by way of comparison with the pres- 

 ent times in the "FAR west." He says : 



"As I pass along the streets of our village on 

 the day of our annual show, where it usually 

 happens that the leaves of the elms and button 

 woods begin first to strew the ground under the 

 breath of the October wind, the lively spirit in 

 their sap seems to mount as high as any plough- 

 boy's let loose on that day ; and they bear my 

 thoughts away to the rustling woods where the 

 trees are preparing for their winter campaign. 

 This autumnal festival where men are gathered 

 in crowds in the streets as regularly and by as 

 natural a law as the leaves cluster and rustle 

 by the wayside, is naturally associated in my 

 mind with the fall of the year. 



"The low of the cattle in the streets sounds 

 like a hoarse symphony or running bass to the 

 rustling of the leaves. The wind goes hurrying 

 down the country gleaning every loose straw 

 that is left in the tield, while every farm-lad, 

 too, appears to scud before it. Having donned 

 his best pea-jacket and pepper-salt waistcoat, 

 his unbent trousers, outstanding rigging ol 

 duck, or kerseymere, or corduroy and his furry 

 hat withal ; to country fairs and cattle shows, 

 to that rome among the villages where the 

 treasures of the year are gathered. 



"All the lands over they go leaping the 

 fences with their tough, idle palms, which nev- 

 er learned to hang by their sides, amid the low 

 of calves and the bleating of sheep, 

 "From steep pine lieariDg mountains to the plain." 



"I love these sons of earth, every mother's 

 son of them, with their great hearty hearts 

 rushing lumultuously in herds from spectacle 

 to spectacle, as if fearful lest there should not 

 be time between run and run to see them all. 



"Wise nature's darlings, ihey live in the world, 



Perplexing not themselves how it lo hurled." 

 Running hither and thither with appetites for 

 the coarse pastimes of the day, now with bois- 

 terous speed to the inspired negro in whose 

 larynx the melodies of all Congo and Guinea 

 coast have broken loose into our streets ; now 

 to see the procession of a hundred yoke of oxen, 

 all as august as Osiris or the droves of neat 

 cattle and milch cows as unspotted as Iris or 

 Jo, such as had no love for nature at all, 

 "Came lovers home from the great festival." 



"They may bring their fattest cattle and 

 richest fruits to the fair, but they are all eclips- 

 ed by the show of men. These are stirring au- 



tumn days, when men sweep by in crowds amid 

 the rustle of leaves like migrating liucbes. This 

 is the true harvest of the year, when the air is 

 but the breath of men and the rustling leaves 

 is as the trampling of the crowd. 



" We read now-a-days of the ancient festivals, 

 games and processions of the Greeks and Estru- 

 cans with a little incredulity, or at least with 

 little sympathy ; but how natural and impres- 

 sible in every people is some hearty greeting of 

 nature. The Corybantes, the Bachanites, the 

 rude primitive tragedians, with their proces- 

 sion and great song, and the whole parapher- 

 nalia of iPanathenaca, which appear so anti- 

 quated and peculiar, have their parallel now. 

 It is worth while to set the country's people, 

 how they pour into town ; the sober farmer 

 folks now all agog, their very shirt and coat 

 collars pointing forward — collars as broad as if 

 they had put their shirts on wrong end up- 

 ward, for the fashions always tend lo super- 

 fluity, and with an unusual springiness in their 

 gait, jabbering earnestly to one another. 



"The more supple vagabond, too, is sure to 

 appear on the leaot rumor of such a gathering, 

 and the next day to disappear aud go into his 

 hole like the seventeen year locusts, in an ever 

 shabby coat, though finer than the farmer's 

 best, yet never dressed, come to see the sport 

 and have a haud in what is going on ; to 

 kuow " what's the row," if there is any ; to 

 be where some men are drunk, some horse race, 

 some cockerel's hght, anxious lobe shaking props 

 under a table, and above all to see the " striped 

 pig." He is especially the creature of the oc- 

 casion. He empties both his pockets and his 

 character in the stream and swims in such a 

 day. He dearly loves the social slush. There 

 is no reserve of soberness in him. 



"I love to see the herd of meu feeding heart- 

 ily on coarse and succulent pleasures, as cattle 

 ou the husks and stalks of vegetables. There 

 are many crooked and crabbed specimens of 

 humanity among them, run all to thorn and 

 rind, like the third chestnut in the burr, so that 

 you wonder to see some heads wear a whole 

 hat; yet fear not that the race will fail or 

 waver in them; like ciabs thai grow in hedges, 

 ihey furnish the slocks of sweet and thrifty 

 fruits btill. 



"This is nature recruited from age to age, 

 while the lair and palatable varieties die out 

 and have their period. 



"This is that mankind." 



Our author, with all his classical lore and 

 deep thought, could not ken the future even to 

 the present day. He doubtless gives a true 

 delineation of what a Fair was in Yankeedom 

 thirty years ago. But while we may recognize 

 many points of resemblance, it would compare 

 but inditierently with one of our immense Mis 

 stssippi Valley gatherings of the preceul lime. 

 Those were simply the juvenile days of "Yan- 

 kee Dooule." These are Ihe maturer times of 

 Western progress, marching to the lune of 

 "Tramp, tramp, tramiJ." 



None can fail lo see the onward and upward 

 tendency, the unprecedented advance of the 

 "Great West" in agriculture and everything 

 which has a tendency to develop our untold re. 

 sources, aud to promote the happiness and in- 

 dependence of the masses of our people. To- 

 day we pass along one of our railroads and find 

 it one vast stretch of unsettled prairie. In a 

 few months are towns of several hundred inhab- 

 itants strung along the same line of railway, 

 aud the whole country dotted and covered over 

 with houses and barns and cultivated fields, pre- 

 senting at first to a contemplalive mind more 

 of the magical than of the real, as though these 

 huge freighted trains which pass and repass 

 dally and hourly along our ever extending rail- 

 road lines, had the inherent power of throwing 

 off and scatleriug for miles on eacli side of their 

 passage, inhabitants, houses, barns, fences, fields 

 of grain, fruits and other productions, just as 

 the sparks are thrown off from the fire which 

 propels the glittering locomotives, or like the 

 thousands of nebula which are seen with im- 

 proved magnifies to-day, but which were undis- 

 covered on yesterday. Such in fact is the un- 

 heard of rapidity with which Iowa is being 

 populated and her improvements advancing, 

 that none can realize the true measure of her 

 progress, but such as are in a siluation to see 

 for themselves. But an additional feature of 

 real interest to our society, is, that the advance- 

 ment in fruit growing is fully equal lo the gen- 

 eral prosperity, or the rapid onward movement 

 in any other industrial department. 



New orchards, vinV-yards aud fruit gardens 

 are annually coming into bearing, and thous- 



ands of trees, vines and small fruits being 

 ]>lanted; and still the demand is on the increase, 

 far beyond Ihe supply in our own Stale; espe- 

 cially is this so in regard to ai.ple and cherry 

 trees. 



In my efforts last spring for the commence- 

 ment of an "iron-clad" orchard on the State 

 Agricultural Farm, there were several kinds of 

 apples, standard sorts of which I could not ob- 

 tain three year old trees, either in Iowa or any 

 other State, from reliable establishments with 

 which I am acquainted. 



From my experience, then, and information 

 since, by general correspondence, I am satisfied 

 that there is a great deficiency, not only in 

 Iowa, but in all other States, in model trees, of 

 approved varieties for Western planting. 



I say "modei trees," because next to hardi- 

 ness aud fruitfulness, it is essential that trees 

 should be trained by nursery culture in uni- 

 form and symmetrical shape. There is as much 

 due to system and neatnecs in nursery produc- 

 tions as ill anything else. Men of ordinary 

 taste now-a days do not go to nurseries to buy 

 brush merely, but to purchase handsome and 

 thrifty stock; the trees as nearly uniform in 

 size aud shape as different sorts can be grown 

 by proper training. I am aware that some 

 diflfer with me in this, but I maintain that a 

 farm is as much benefitted at least, by model 

 improvements and fixtures as our dwellings 

 inside, and why not cultivate taste in one as 

 well as in the other. I admit that a bureau or 

 a clothes press with a rough and unfinished ex- 

 terior, noi even iack-planed, might hold and 

 preserve the silks, linens and calicoes and 

 other family habiliments as securely as it taste 

 fully veneered and subjected to the highest pol- 

 ish; but how many can you find who will not 

 purchase the latter if they have the means of 

 doing so? And the reason is surely much 

 stronger in the selection of trees than in parlor 

 and dining room appendages; for an orchard is 

 a permanent improvement or fixture. 



If wisely selected and skillfully inaugurated 

 it may last for two or three eenerations, and 

 for years become more valuable. On the con- 

 trary, household goods will constantly detrio- 

 rate, and when half worn out m.iy be sold for 

 their depreciated value and new articles pur- 

 chased ; but remember, you cannot purchase a 

 new bearing orchard. 



To grow a good orchard, is a ten or twelve 

 years' job ; so you had better start right. 



If, when on a journey you miss your road and 

 travel leu or fifteen miles in a wrong direction, 

 possibly you can find a way across to the one 

 you should have taken, and not be obliged to 

 retrace your steps to where you bigan lo di- 

 verge. But not so in orcharding. 



If you have planted either unhealthy or de- 

 formed stocks, you have no remedy but to dig 

 them out, and, as the lawyers say, commence 

 " de novo." Go back to the precise point 

 where you started, and be assured a disappoint 

 ment and loss of this kind cannot be estimated 

 in dollars and cents. 



While in most parts of Iowa this year we 

 have to admit a signal falling ofl' in our gener- 

 al fruit crop, by the combined causes of a sud- 

 den and severe freeze inthe latter part of Octo- 

 ber, 1869. and a late frost during the spring of 

 this year, we have reason still to rejoice, and 

 ought to be thankful to the Great Dispenser ol 

 all Dur multiulied blessings, for a season of gen- 

 eral health and prosperity, and for the fact that 

 in no part of our country are failures of the 

 fruit crop less frequent than in loVa. 



The fall freeze was extraordinary and unac- 

 countable in its effects. It had no peculiar 

 manner of doing its work. The most hardy 

 evergreens, fruit and ornamental liees known 

 in the Western culture, were as liable to be 

 badly or even fatally injured as the tenderest 

 kinds. The American Balsam, or Silver Fir, 

 Hemlock, White Pine, American Arborvilae, 

 Cedar, &c., were among the victims. The Eu- 

 ropean Balsam Fir, (Balsamea) Eu.-opean Silver 

 Fir, (Pectinata,) Blue Spruce of the French, 

 (Abies Coerulea,) Austrian Pine, Siberian Ar- 

 borvilae, and some others weie not injured in 

 the least. One large tree of European Larch, 

 in ray grounds, was badly hurt. Many hardy 

 kinds of apple, such as Ben Davis, were aflVcted 

 severely, and in other in.stances entirely killed. 

 Sometimes the top of the tree betokened the 

 work of the destroyer and in other instances only 

 the stock near the ground ; each partiiular case 

 undoubtedly depending upon the condition of 

 the sap current when the freeze came on. 



In regard to this fait frcize, it is consolatory 

 to know that such a mortality among ever- 



