TWENTY-SIXTH SESSION. 
93 
polished by artificial means. Seventy-five miles inland this tree can scarcely 
be induced to grow at all. Three hundred miles to the southwest in Iowa 
the writer tried to grow this Wisconsin white beech" on what seemed a 
favorable soil and proper shelter, with the result that out of fifty trees 
planted, about twenty years ago, only one, and that not more than four feet 
high, remains. 
The red cedar as developed in southern Illinois, will not live in central or 
northern Iowa; but the red cedar in some of its forms is indigenous over 
the great northwest. The red cedar of the Platte River in Nebraska, has 
taken on a constitution peculiar to its climatic environment and is only a 
partial success in Iowa. Black walnuts from southern Illinois seed will not 
endure the climate of northern Iowa; while the black walnut grows to an 
immense size along all the principal rivers of the State. 
It may be well to State in this connection that in about one-third, the north- 
west portion of this area, the wild crab apple, Pyrus coronaria, is not found 
in any of its forms; while in the remainder of the territory it is found in great 
abundance. And when we add to the facts above stated, that the proportion 
of this region is exceedingly limited over which any variety of the apple of 
eastern origin is even fairly successful; and that the Concord grape cannot 
remain on the trellis during severe winters in more than one-tenth of this 
entire territory, the listener can catch a glimpse of the difficulties that beset 
the horticulturist, and the magnitude of the work that confronts the scientific 
experimenter. 
That fruits will be adapted to this region there is not now room for doubt. 
We have reached a point in evolution and experience from which progress 
will be comparatively rapid. The Turner and Loudon red raspberries and the 
Older black cap have successfully withstood thirty-five to forty-five degrees 
below zero the past winter, and have borne good crops; the Turner originated 
at Jacksonville, Illinois; the Loudon at Janesville, Wisconsin, and the Older at 
Independence, Iowa. 
Several of the improved varieties of the Americana plum seem to be at home 
over the entire territory, and the fact is a significant one that the central 
portion of this region has given to horticulture a larger number of valuable 
varieties of this species than all other portions of our country combined. We 
have made some little progress it is true, in the development of the apple, but 
it is a matter for sincere regret over the whole west and northwest, that 
we have done so little. It need not have been so, but sometimes there are 
extremists high in authority as well as elsewhere; and it so happened that 
unwise and unqualified recommendations have resulted in almost unqualified 
failure where large success should have been attained. Had the counsel of 
such men as your honorable president and our worthy pomologist prevailed 
we would not have wasted fifteen to twenty years over the assumption, that 
the apples, pears, plums and cherries of Northern Europe would suit our 
tastes, and meet the demands of our climate. Could we reasonably expect it? 
-—when the Domestica plums originating in our own country are almost entire 
failures here, and pears likewise — the best of the morello cherries only half 
a success; and not a single variety of apples originating in the eastern states 
that can endure successfully our severest winters? Fifteen to eighteen years 
ago, the writer in several articles contributed to the “Iowa Homestead” 
pointed out the proper course to pursue in adapting fruits to the Great Valley 
of the Upper Mississippi, showing that the future successful orchards of this 
region would be the out-growth of seedlings produced from its own soil and 
olimate. 
