36 The Canadian Horticulturist. 



so horribly disfigured that it is even unfit for home use. Mr. A. McD. Allan 

 gave in amendment to the list presented for the County of Huron, the following, 

 as the varieties he would recommend to planters of orchards for commercial 

 purposes, viz. : — For summer, the Yellow Transparent and Duchess ; for autumn, 

 the Gravenstein, the Peewaukee and the Blenheim Orange ; for winter, the 

 Baldwin, the Ontario and the Golden Russet. 



Mr. S. D. Willard, of Geneva, N.Y., gave a very interesting address upon 

 Fruit Growing in Western New York during the past season. Mr. Willard is 

 Vice-President of the Western New York Horticultural Society ; he is a most 

 enthusiastic fruit grower, and infuses life into any meeting at which he is present. 

 He highly recommended the Yellow Transparent as a summer apple. The 

 Sutton's Beauty, he said, keeps better than the Baldwin, and is an apple which 

 will be wanted for every orchard as soon as it is generally known. Among 

 peaches. Hill's Chili, though not a very good variety for eating out of hand, is 

 an excellent one for canning purposes ; Early Rivers is comparatively a hardy 

 variety, enduring cold that will destroy the fruit buds of many other varieties. 

 Its child, the Horton Rivers, is very similar, but a free stone. The Yellow St. 

 John, he considered the earliest of yellow peaches, and a variety he had never 

 yet known to fail. The Garfield, or Brigdon, quite a new variety, promises to 

 be a standard orchard variety, for it possesses great merits. Listening to Mr. 

 Willard, one could not help becoming an enthusiast in fruit culture. He spoke 

 in terms which seem almost extravagant regarding the profits of this industry. 

 For instance, speaking of pears, he stated that his best paying crops had been 

 taken from his Bartlett and Kieffer orchards. Of the latter variety he has one 

 orchard of two hundred and fourteen trees, planted upon a little more than an 

 acre of ground, and this has yielded him in three years the sum of $3,000 ; 

 during the year 1890, $1,250 of this amount. Notwithstanding its poor quality 

 there is not a variety that is growing more rapidly in favor than the Kieffer. In 

 speaking of plums, he said the most profitable varieties were those ripening for 

 the very early or very late market, but that it would be wise to plant for market 

 a list of varieties covering the whole season, and possessing the characteristics of 

 hardiness, productiveness and firmness, for distant shipments. The Windsor 

 cherry he considered the best dark colored cherry that he had ever marketed. 

 He had sold it in the City of Philadelphia as high as 20 cents per pound. 



In reply to a question by some one present regarding the pruning of plum 

 trees, one gentleman stated that he allowed his trees to grow as they chose, 

 without any pruning. This brought Mr. Willard to his feet again, and he stated 

 that formerly he had dt)ne the same, but, on visiting the Hudson River plum 

 growers on one occasion in winter-time, he found them busily engaged in 

 pruning their plum trees. Upon enquiring the reason of their practice, they 

 said that if they neglected to do this their trees would be broken with the load of 

 fruit; but by shortening them in they were made to stiffen up and support heavier 

 loads. Since that time he has made it a rule to cut off from one-quarter to one- 



