72 



THE ILLINOIS FAKMEK. 



Makgh 



or fkill can give them. Such fruits are adapted 

 to our climate and they need the warm sunshine, 

 the showers and dews of heaven, the pure atmos- 

 phere, to give that rich, luscious, sugary, inex- 

 pressible quality, th^t delightful aroma, to them, 

 which they possess, and of which they are defi- 

 cient when raised by artificial means. 



Mr. Mason — I shall take occasion at some fu- 

 ture time to substantiate my position upon atith- 

 ority equally gocd with that of the gentleman last 

 upon the florr. 



Dr. Matthews — I cannot speak from personal 

 experience, but know that Mr. Rivers, the famous 

 grower of fruit by artificial heat in England, 

 says that the fruit grown in hot houses is not of 

 BO high and fine a flavor as that ripened in the 

 ©pen air, and he is considered standard authOiity 

 upon the subject. 



Mr. Kelly — When you shade trees by boards or 

 otherwise, as is sometimes recommended, it is 

 too artificial a protection for their well being, 

 but keep the trees well pruned down, so as to 

 shade themselves, and you will grow plenty of 

 good fruit on any slope. I would as soon plant 

 trees on a southern slope as any other. 



Mr. Spencer Smith — I have observed in Ver- 

 mont that the best apple orchards were on a slope 

 covered by a hill on the western side. 



Mr Colman said that he took issue decidedly 

 with Mr. Kelly about planting orchards on a 

 southern slope. The sap iu the trees on this 

 elope is started too early in spring, as before 

 stated. They shielded from the cold, and the 

 sap is easily excited by the warm sunshine. They 

 should be exposed to the cold. The more they 

 are exposed the better. If protected, and severe 

 cold weather reaches them, they are destroyed. 

 Mr. Husmann, of Hermann, has trees on a south- 

 ern slope ki'led on account of being protected 

 from the north, while those trees of the same va- 

 rieties exposed to the cold are healthy. He says 

 putting trees in protected places, is like keeping 

 children in warm houses and then suddenly turn- 

 ing them out of doors in the cold naked. The 

 sap of the apple is not as easily started as of the 

 peach and some other fruits, yet it is affected in 

 early spring by the sunshine on southern slopes 

 when it would not have been on northern. 



Mr. Kelly — I did not advocate southern slope 

 for crop, but for quality. 



Mr. Mudd — The application of slopes has been 

 too general. A man planting on a multiplicity 

 of slopes, as many are obliged to do, should plant 

 the variety adapted to each ore of them. The 

 Jeneton should be planted on a southern decliv- 

 ity, as it blooms late. 



Mr.Bayley — I have eaten, recently, pears that 

 were ripened by artificial heats, and instead of 

 being of fine flavor, they are really insipid. 



Mr. Carew Sanders contended that fruit could 

 not be ripened without the solar rays, and in mid- 

 winter they could not be had suflBclently strong 

 to perfect fruit. It was impossible to effect by 

 artificial heat, in any latitude, or any country, a 

 perfect flavor, but by combining artificial heat 

 and the solar rays, fruit of as good if not better 

 flavor could be produced. 



Mr. Mason — I have not advocated artificial 

 heat alone by any remark of mine to-day, but 

 only as an auxiliary. 



Dr. Matthew* — Mr. Rivers advises the ventil- 

 ation of hot houses that their contents may 

 brea'he, and adds that they should at an enrly 

 period be removed to »he open Hir so as to give 

 them a better quality and higher flavor. 



On motion, the meeting adjourned one week. 

 Wm. W. Wheeler, 



Secretary. 



— Doctors continue to disagree in regard to the 

 aspect of the orchard, and doub'less will for 

 some time to come, so long as latitude and eleva- 

 tion are elements of climatic value. In the lati- 

 tude of St. Louis, which corresponds with that of 

 Centralia, northern and eastern slopes are of some 

 value, though we have seen orchards that have a 

 southern aspect prove quite as fruitful, but not 

 in all cases. When a southern slope is protected 

 by high hills or forest trees on the north and 

 west we have found complaints of killing by frost, 

 the buds starting too early. Low headed trees, 

 such as those of Mr. Cjc, at Port Byron, will do 

 much to ward off this danger, as the sun cannot 

 so easily heat the groucd under the trees, to start 

 them prematurely, as the branches shade tha 

 ground, and thus retards the rit-ing of the sap. 

 The suggestion of Mr. Mudd that the Raules Ja- 

 net would do well on a southern slope, on account 

 of its late blooming, is doubtless of value. The 

 Northern Spy is similar in its habits. Protection 

 elevation and soil have much to do iu modifying 

 the effect of the aspect of the orchard, and 

 should be studied in every case. Ed. 



-••>- 



Changing Seeds. — The Irish Agricultural Re- 

 view s-iys : The practice of changing seed is now 

 recognized in many sections as ess< ntially neces- 

 sary to the production of a first rate crop. We all 

 know that the practice of procuring seed potatoes 

 from a distance — say 20 or 25 miles — and from 

 different kinds of soil has a most marktd itjfluence 

 on the product. While the rationale of this is not 

 quite obvious, the fact is indisputable. The same 

 result follows also in the management of corn, 

 wheat, pumpkins, beans and garden seeds. Even 

 where exchanges are made between farmers in 

 the same neighborhood, and where there is no 

 very marked difference in the geological or min- 

 eral characteristics of the soil in respective local- 

 ities, the practice is conducive to improvement. 

 Let those who have never tried the experiment 

 do so — on a small scale at first — if they are at 

 all skeptical, and mark the results, both as re- 

 gards quantity and quality of crop. 



-«•»- 



— The monument of the greatest should be 

 but a bust and a name. If the name is insuf- 

 ficient to illustrate the bust, let both perish. 



