94 
SOUTHERN C U L T I V A T 0[R . 
one of supeiior quality which we shall ofter for sale the 
coming season at our usual price, for we shall not in but 
rare instances ask anything more. Our object from the 
commencement of our nursery operations has been to 
place our trees before our Southern friends at prices a 
little lower than those asked by Northern nurserymen. 
We here avow it has been our intention to cilford no 
excuse for. sending to the North as heretofore fpr fruit or 
fruit trees. We have every year for several past, paid 
from 50 cents to S‘b50 per tree at the North for new vari- 
ties and tlie year following sold the same varieties at 40 
cents per tree; grown here, from grafts taken from those 
identical trees. Our object is to place it within the means 
and tempt our Southern friends to engage in the cultiva- 
tion of excellent fi’uit in abundance, and we have the gra- 
tification of saying our motives have thusfar been duly ap- 
preciated and seconded. 
We had the pleasure of receiving a letter a few days 
since from an enterprizing citizen of this State, w)io 
says: “in five years Georgia will be the greatest fruit grow- 
ing State in the Union. If so this will be a rapid stride, 
as it is btit seven years since the attention of the public 
was directed to the substitution of Southern for Northern 
varieties. 
There is an erroneous opinion promulgated at the North 
in relation to Southern fruit, and we reluctantly are com- 
pelled to think designedly, by interested persons. Not 
long since we read in an extract from an address delivered 
by a distinguished Northern Potnologist, before a North 
ern Society, the following paragraph ; 
“Our Northern Apples are of little value in the South, 
and the very finest Southern Apples are utterly worthless 
in the North.” 
The former part of this assertion is all known to be 
true, for we have for 30 or 40 years been proving them ; 
but is the latter clause true ? For so late as 1845 when 
Dov/ning’.s Fruit and Fruit Trees of America went to press, 
itappears there was no such anomaly known as Southern 
fruits, for with the exception of the Columbia Peach 
and the Father Abraham Apple, none are mentioned ; and 
even in 1855 wlien B.4Rry’.s was published, in his descrip- 
tive list of 133 varieties of Apples, but four hail from the 
South of Mason and Di.xon’s Line, to wit: Bokannon,Red 
June, Cane and Limber Twig. Now, as our Southern 
Apples have only been before the public for seven or 
eight year&(with but few exceptions,) how does the dis- 
titiijuished orator know “Southern varieties are utterly 
worthless at ihe North.” 
We here will run the risk of saying not one of our 
Southern varieties, with the excej)tion of those four men 
tinned atmve, have ever been grown or fruited in a State 
North of Mason and' Di.xon s Line. We challenge the 
author to prove to the contrary, for we kiunv they liave 
had neither grafts nor trees from the South, and further if 
they had, they have not had time to fruit them. We speak 
of St.rte.s as far south as Georgia or South Carolina. When 
the foregoing assertion was made it was fjr Buncombe, 
for the benefit of Northern nurserymen, and a fraud upon 
the Northern fruit grosvers. 
Wiiether our Southern varieties will succeed at the 
North or not remains to l)e tried and ascertained, and 
wheti they f.ave had as long experience with ours as we 
have had with theirs, we shall deem them competent to 
judge. 
Northern nur.serymen see and know that the glory is 
about to depart from Judeah, and fear that they must 
soon exclaim ‘alas ! Othello’s occupation's gone.” 
V/e do not claim to be a prophet nor the son of a 
phophet. but tlie North must pay back the amount she has 
received from the South with interest for fruit and fruit 
trees purchased from her, or be content with indifferent 
varieties, and second-rate prices in the market, or procure 
j her trees from the South. 
I The reasons urged against Northern varietie.s and trees 
! will not apply to Southern varieties going North. Our 
j trees are raised an a more sterile soil than theirs, and on 
j being removed to a better, as we know theirs to be, will 
j have a tendency to increase the size of the fruit, to say 
i the least. Southern raised trees are healtliier and less sub- 
I ject to disease than Northern, and instead of dying down 
i will grow off vigorously. Some of our varieties may not 
I have time to arrive at perfection there, but that is a ques- 
I tion to be yet determined by experiment. 
J. Van Bcren, 
r'l n fin 1 S.aT 
j very distinguished Pomologist, well known both 
I in Europe and America, writes us as follows, from Florida : 
I APPJbE.S IN TME .SOUTH. 
j Editors Southern Cultivator — During my rambles 
through the Carolinas and Georgia I was much surprised 
to see that the larger part of the apples sold in the stores 
were products of . the North, while the North Caro- 
j lina and Georgia Apples are nearly all of superior quality, 
! and most of them very productive varieties. With such 
j Apples as the Buff, Nickajack, the Camak, and Carolina 
j Greening, and many others, the South could depend on 
I its own resources, without the expenses and inconveni- 
ences of transportation, which almost always proves so in- 
jurious to fruit, especially late in the fall. 
A circumstance which struck me all over the Southern 
States is the comparatively small number of Apple and 
Pear trees. The Peach tree alone seeming to be cultivated 
or, in some localities, rather allowed to grow spontaneous- 
j ly. What I have seen of the few Apple and Pear trees is 
I enough to convince me that they succeed admirably in 
j these latitudes, grow faster, are less exposed to diseases 
I and produce uncommonly fine crops. If neglect or care- 
lessness could be justified, the 1‘act that the blossoms are 
1 often injured by spring frosts could be brought in as an ex- 
j euse or justification; butas it is not a drawback to the cul- 
j tivation of the Peach tree, although as much and perhaps 
j more exposed to those frosts and other inconveniences 
j (as the borer, the short living of the tree) why sliould it 
I be an objection to raise other fruits as useful, perhaps 
more so than the Peach ? 
Travelling through extensive plains and valleys, with 
hurdlj one Apple tree in sight, I was often thinking that 
if only H good apple tree was to be jiiund on an average 
to every ten acres of ground, instead of purchasing poor 
Apples from ilie Nurtli, the boulh could not only supply 
its own wants but send to the niidiile States Apples of a 
quality and flavor unknown in the Northern States. Jt is 
a very singular feature in Pomology that almost all the 
Southern Appltj possess a spiceness, an aroma, a richness 
of flavor winch we find in very tew of the Northern vari- 
ties. They are, moreover, of uncommon size, and some 
last as long as the late Noriheni varieties. 
There are many valleys, many favored spots in . that 
rich, varied and sunny Georgia where Apple and Pear 
trees would escape the spring frosts. This fact will he 
better known when more fruit trees shall be planted in 
different localities on southern and northern slopes of the 
mountains or in favored and protected valleys. It is hard- 
ly possible to expect fruit trees to grow equally thrifty 
and to be equally produciive in every spot of such vast 
area as North and South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia. 
In France, only a few proyinces are celebrated as fcuU 
