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History of the Acme Apricot. 
The Acme apricot is very favorably no- 
ticed in Orchard and Garden and possibly 
a note in regard to its history may have 
some interest. About ten years since we 
had some correspondence with an English 
missionary in regard to the peaches of north- 
west China and Mongolia. In answer to 
queries he stated that good peaches, apri- 
cots, and pears, were grown in that region, 
and that the peaches and apricots nearly 
reproduced themselves from seed. A year 
later we received a small package of 
peach and apricot pits in a dried condi- 
tion. With the utmost care, by careful 
filing and soaking, we secured one solitary 
plant of the apricot. The original plant 
is still vigorous, though it has been cut 
unmercifully for buds and scions. The 
first plants were sent out under the name 
of “Chinese Apricot.” After it fruit- 
ed, and we had decided that it was a val- 
uable acquisition, we sent it out to our 
trial stations under the name of “Shense” 
as the pits were forwarded from the Pro- 
vince of Shense. Still later Carpenter 
and Gage of Nebraska discovered its value 
and gave it the name of Acme. As this 
name has become commercial it is best to 
accept it, but it is well to publish the fact 
that, so far as I know, all the plants of Chi- 
nese Apricot, and Shense Apricot in the 
country are identical with it. The tree is 
much hardier in our climate than any of 
the Russian apricot, in wood, fruit bud, 
and blossom, and its large, handsome foliage 
has as yet shown no tendency to leaf rust 
or disease of any kind. Its seedlings will 
also be worthy of close attention, as they 
may give us a hardy race with fruit more 
or less varied in size, flavor, and season. — J. 
L. Budd. 
China. It was accompanied by a small 
packet of pear seed taken, he said, from 
really excellent fruit of the Snow pear race. 
These seeds, with many others, were mixed 
with sand in flower pots and buried for 
winter freezing. The last days of March 
we had a thaw and the ground was dry and 
mellow. We planted the pear seeds with 
several other things, in what we supposed 
to be the best possible manner. Before 
they came up we had in April a heavy 
The Last Gift of Charles Gibb. 
The above note is a reminder of the fact 
that the last note from the lamented Chas. 
Gibb was from the Province of Shense in 
Acme or shense apricot. Fig.' 1633. 
beating rain followed by four weeks of dry 
windy weather. The ground baked hard 
dow-n to the seeds and nearly the whole 
planting w T as lost. But the Chinese pear 
seeds raised the crust with the power of a 
ground mole and made a growth the first 
season of from three to four feet. Nothing 
equaled them in lifting power except some 
native plum pits, and the acorns of the 
Volga white oak. But the seedlings show 
a crossing of species. About three of them 
are typical Snow pears such as we have im- 
ported and fruited from Mongolia. The 
other plants appear to have reverted to 
some primitive form not represented in our 
Chinese collection. — J. L. Budd. 
North Carolina Apples. 
At the late meeting of the American Po- 
mological Society at Washington, the state- 
ment was made that fruits attain at the 
North a higher color than in the South, 
owing to the longer hours of the mid-sum- 
mer sunshine. 
While theoretically this may be correct, 
it is really only true of early summer-ri- 
pening fruits. Such fruits as winter ap- 
ples attain really a higher color in the 
apple country of the South than they do 
at the North. This is more true of northern 
winter apples brought south than of oui- 
native sorts. The Baldwin apple for in- 
stance, while only an early fall apple here 
attains a depth of coloring we have never 
seen in the same variety from the North. 
We have more native sorts of a dingy col- 
or than are usually found North, but we 
also have native sorts of very high color. 
One reason why many apples -south are of 
a less brilliant color is the fact that apple 
trees in our best southern apple section, 
the mountains of western North Carolina, 
attain such a size and luxuriance of foliage 
that the fruit is shaded too much, and the 
trees are less carefully pruned than in 
commercial orchards north. Along side 
the great apple trees of the western N. C. 
mountains, the apple trees of western 
New r York would seem but pigmies. The 
great point of superiority of the apples 
of the southern Blue Ridge region is in 
the fine texture and superior quality of 
the fruit. A northern winter apple al- 
ways has a tendency to mealiness in ri- 
pening and a dryness of flesh, while the 
leading characteristic of the apples of 
the southern Blue Ridge country, is their 
brittle flesh, and rich vinous juice. It is 
this character which has caused the pip- 
