W?T^P^ 



1863. 



THE ILLmOIS FAEMEE. 11 



quantity and quality, and that a poor fruit 

 miglit so improve in a few years as to become val- 

 uable, it was too often the case that these new 

 fruits were hastily condemned or vastly over- 

 estimated. 



Mr. Colman of Missouri said that about St. 

 Louis we find the finer fruits less hardy than the 

 Beedlings, that we should select the slow grow- 

 ers, as these will be found the most hardy and 

 valuable. 



Mr. Bryant would take issue on that point, as 

 with him seedling apple trees were no more hardy 

 than the grafts, even those of rapid growth like 

 the Sweet June. In the winter of 1854-'55, 

 which proved so destructive to orchards, the 

 slow growing seedling suffered alike with those of 

 the most vigorous habit. 



Mr. Galusha would explain that the hereditary 

 transmission of characteristic, goes far back into 

 the history of fruits, that it is possible to pro- 

 duce new kinds, containing both hardiness and 

 high quality of fruit. 



Dr. Morse would ask how wc could reconcile 

 the doctrine of tender trees and fine quality. 



Dr. Warder replied that in the history of pear 

 culture that we could easily lose our labor by 

 cultivating for fine quality without regard to 

 hardiness of tree, that in the one case we could 

 have a few very superior specimens, but can make 

 no money on them, and must forego the use of 

 their fruit. He was something of a pear mania- 

 ist, so much so that he wanted a good fruit that 

 produced in plen(y, and ti'ees just as hardy as 

 he could get them ; that he was willing to take 

 up with a less luscious fruit if he could have it 

 in abundance. 



Messrs. Colman and Bryant, discussed the 

 hardiness of slow and rapid growing trees, 

 the^former contending that the short jointed, 

 Blow growing trees were the most valuable, 

 ripening their wood early in the season and 

 producing more continuous and abundant crops, 

 while the latter contended that rapid growers, 

 like Sweet June and others of this class, proved 

 as hardy as those of slower growth. 



Mr.Minier would,cite the case of the Little Ho- 

 manite, a rapid growing tree and very hardy. 

 He suggested that it was the very rapid growth 

 of any particular season, such as the past one, in 

 which the growth is enormous, and he feared the 

 coming winter would prove disastrous to the 

 fruit trees, and he believed that it was this con- 

 dition of the trees when entering the winter in 

 this immature condition; he would, therefore, 

 reconcile these discrepancies of slow and rapid 



growth, for in such seasons as the past, both of 

 these classes will prove tender. 



Dr. Warder would call the Bartlett a tender 

 tree, its woody structure was weak and its 

 branches would snap in every wind, yet every 

 one wanted Bartletts, but he would not advise 

 its planting on the prairie, unless inside of "Ru- 

 ral's" double belts of silver maples. 



Smiley Shepherd of Hennej>in has tried all the 

 varieties of pear from Van Mens. Leon Le Clere, 

 down to the scraggy, thorny kinds ; all, all, had 

 gone with the horrible blight. He knows no 

 difference in the hardiness; when the blight 

 came they all went. One season some of the 

 varieties stood well, but the next would finish 

 ttiem. In his experience the seedling was as 

 liable to the attacks of blight and insects, and 

 no more hardy than the grafted varieties. 



President Galusha contended that a seedling 

 from the seed of two tender sorts hybridized, 

 was no more hardy than its parents. 



Mr. Colman contended that trees injured by 

 the winter or other cause, should not be used for 

 stocks or grafts, and to this cause might be at- 

 tributed the failure of many varieties. 



Mr. Minier coincided in these views,and would 

 recommend a more thorough study of the circu- 

 lation of the sap. 



Dr. Warder and others contended per contra 

 that the new growth overlaying the eld, was per- 

 fectly healthy; if this was not so, we would not 

 see large and rapid growing forest trees badly 

 decayed near the base put on such vigorous 

 growth for hundreds of years after the injury 

 from fire or other causes. That the growth of 

 the tree was made at the outside, and it mattered 

 not if the inside heart of the tree was diseased, 

 it did not perceptibly injure the vigor of the 

 growing tree. Thus fruit trees injured by the 

 winter, might and did to a great extent recover, 

 by putting a new layer of wood over the injured 

 surface. This is often the case with the peach, 

 as in the season following the winter of 1854- 

 '55, also with the apple. All through the coun- 

 try thousands of trees had almost if not wholly 

 recovered from the injury, when good culture 

 had enabled them to form new layers of wood 

 the next season, while those neglected were ru- 

 ined. Thrifty growing shoots upon a tree in- 

 jured by the winter or other cause were just as 

 good to propagate, as those from any other 

 source. A thrifty growing tree being checked 

 in growth by transplanting and after neglect 

 would at once become black at the heart and ul- 

 timately rotten ; yet such a tree with good cnl- 



