324 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



Booner than trees with roots. They are not as much affected by the wind 

 when first set. 



A gentleman said that all tall-growing trees upon a loose soil like that 

 of an Illinois prairie are apt to decay at the top early. He recommended 

 apple trees of a flat-growing habit. A tall tree sends its roots deep, and 

 they reach the water and decaj'^, and then the. top follows suit. A flat- 

 growing tree spreads its roots near the surface, which are consequently more 

 healthy in a wet soil. 



A New Blackberry. 



Mr. H. H. Doolittle, of Oaks' Corners, N. Y., who gives name to an 

 improved black-cap raspberry, writes that he has a new blackberry, which 

 he obtained from the woods three years ago. The canes are nearly free of 

 thorns, and grow reclining, four or five feet long, with long branches, 

 which have to be supported when loaded with fruit, the berries of which 

 are about half the size of the Lawtons, and very excellent, soft, juicy, 

 sweet, but too tender for a market berry, if to be transported a long dis- 

 tance. 



The Sour and Sweet Apple Question. 



This question was again brought up, and pretty thoroughly ventilated. 



Mr. Prince said that the theory of making apples, one side of which 

 would be sour and one side sweet, by uniting two buds, was ridiculous; 

 and he utterly disbelieved in the existence of such apples. He, nor his fath- 

 er, in his lifetime, had never been able to obtain a distinctly marked speci- 

 men of a sweet and sour apple, except so far as exposure to the sun made 

 one side a little less acid than the other. 



Prof Nash. — I will not say that I have seen and tasted such apples, but 

 I have been told by men of the greatest trustworthiness of an apple tree 

 in Massachusetts, the fruit of which was not only sweet and sour most dis- 

 tinctly upon the two sides, but one side was red and the other a light color, 

 and one-half outgrew the other, so that the apple had the appearance of 

 the halves of two apples — one much larger than the other — joined and 

 grown together. The testimony is so strong that I cannot disbelieve it. 



Dr. Church, of this city, said that he had not only seen but tasted such 

 apples, most distinctly marked upon the opposite sides sweet and sour. 

 They were grown by Mr. Wheeler in Butler, Wayne county, N. Y. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — I have a number of letters upon this subject — not 

 all of them affirming the sour and sweet in the same apple, but that sour and 

 sweet apples grow promiscuously upon the same tree. I will give some of 

 these: 



Mr. Wm. R. Prince. — My father and myself never saw one; I think if 

 they had been grown we should have seen them. If such apples are 

 raised let us see them; we must not rely upon hearsay testimony. 



Mr. Geo. Hamilton, of Penn Yan, N. Y., affirms that there is an old tree 

 upon the fai-m of D. Stephenson, formerly owned by B. Smith, and two 

 others produced by grafts from that tree, another on the farm of S. Mills- 

 paugh, and one on his (Hamilton's) farm, all of which produce apples that 

 are sweet and sour in the same specimen, " The apples are not all of the 



