Th"e Canadian Horticulturist. 131 



tion, as from the rains and dews on the surface ; therefore, if the subsoil is not 

 retentive, vegetation must suffer during drought ; and there are very few years 

 in which we have not, at one time or other, a period of dry weather ; then, if 

 trees do not have time to fully recover from such visitations before winter sets 

 in, they are ill-prepared to withstand the effects of severe cold ; and therefore 

 many of them are lost that might, under other conditions, or with a more reten- 

 tive subsoil, have escaped injury altogether. 



In choice of varieties of apples, I was equally unfortunate ; here, again, I 

 followed the recommendations of fruit growers as met with in magazines, reports 

 of horticultural societies, etc.; but at that time very little was said about the 

 varieties recommended being suitable or otherwise for cold climates ; I there- 

 fore selected as my four principal varieties, Rhode Island Greening, Baldwin, 

 Roxburgh Russet and Northern Spy, which all proved failures on my ground, 

 causing great loss and disappointment. These are all winter apples, the very 

 kind that should be avoided by northern growers, because the trees do not ripen 

 their wood early enough to stand severe frosts, and I perhaps might add, they 

 have no time to recover that strength that has been severely taxed by maturing 

 a crop, before winter sets in ; they are, therefore, more tender than fall and 

 summer varieties. 



The Wagener was a complete failure with me ; I planted thirty of them one 

 spring and they grew finely through the summer, but the following spring found 

 them all dead ; that variety seemed to succeed with one of my neighbors wiio 

 had a clay soil, and the Gravenstein succeeded well with another on a stiff, cold, 

 wet soil, while on my light soil I could not get them to live. 



Although I failed with a good many varieties, I had some success : the Red 

 Astrachan, Duchess, Alexander, Hastings and Wealthy did well ; Red Astrachan 

 and Hastings were the most vigorous growers, but were only just commencing to 

 bear fairly after nine years' growth ; the Alexanders produced fine specimens of 

 fruit, but few of them, and the Duchess and Wealthy bore such heavy crops, they 

 had to be thinned out, or they would have broken down the trees, commencing 

 to bear at three years from planting. 



My first planting consisted of about three hundred trees, and among them 

 were sixteen Wealthy ; as soon as they commenced bearing, and ever since, the 

 produce of those sixteen Wealthys exceeded the total of all that were living of 

 those three hundred ; the Duchess were not planted at the same time, or they 

 would have given a different result. 



I had a very similar experience with currants, of which I planted about three 

 hundred bushes, part red and part white ; the red were bought as Red Dutch, 

 and Cherry, but amongst them came, by some mistake, half a dozen of a kind 

 that proved more profitable than either, for in course of time these half a dozen 

 produced nearly as much fruit as the other survivors of the three hundred first 

 planted. The reason was that all, except that half dozen, were so infested with 

 the borer, that those that were not killed outright were sadly crippled, and were 



