THIRTY-THIRD BIENNIAL SESSION 
37 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE HYBRIDIZING OF FRUITS. 
C. G. Patten, Iowa. 
In a paper to this Society two years ago on the “Adaptation of the Pear 
to the Mississippi Valley States,” attention was directed to the most re- 
markable difference that there is between the Atlantic Coast climate and 
that of the Middle Northwestern Prairie States, in its effects on trees and 
shrubs. For the most part, fruit trees and shrubs that are wholly adapted 
to the former are quite likely to be as wholly unadapted to the latter. The 
importance of this difference is so great that it will bear a recall at this time. 
The winters of 1863-4 and 1872-3 so destroyed the hopes of the then 
settlers of the Northwest in ever being able to successfully grow the fruits of 
the Eastern United States, that they began to seriously turn their attention to 
the cultivation of the Siberian Crab Apple. The advent of the Transcendent, 
Whitney and Hyslop so stimulated this interest that nurserymen in northern 
Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and northern Iowa began to cultivate them in 
large numbers. Peter M. Gideon of Minnesota led the way in growing a 
multitude of the Siberians. He was closely followed by Dr. P. A. Jewell, also 
of Minnesota, in the introduction of several valuable accidental hybrids of 
that time. 
Another enthusiast in this work was a Dr. Andrev/s of Marengo, Il- 
linois, who introduced several sorts of his selection on account of their 
freedom from the general acridity of the Siberians. The writer remembers 
his exhibit of them at the Wisconsin State Fair held at Madison some time in 
the latter seventies, and well remembers seeing Dr. John A. Warder care- 
fully examine them and express as much interest in them as could be done 
by one of cultivated tastes, who lived in a state where they grew such ex- 
cellent apples as were then common in Ohio. In Wisconsin, Minnesota and 
northern Iowa, these Siberians and the Oldenburg apples were synonyms for 
hardiness, and the hope of the future of Pomology in the Northwest. The 
introduction of the hybrid Brier, Sweet Russett, Orange, Minnesota and Mr. 
Gideon’s Mary and Martha and a large number of others appearing about 
the same time, turned the tide of Northwestern Pomology strongly toward 
them. 
Added to the above were the large importations of Russian apples by 
the Agricultural Department, and a number of the best Russians through 
Cassius M. Clay, our Minister to St. Petersburg for Mr. A. G. Tuttle of 
Baraboo, Wisconsin, in 1868. Both of these collections were soon enlarged 
by the more enthusiastic efforts of Prof. J. L. Budd and Mr. Charles Gibb of 
Canada, especially in the interest of the Iowa and Canadian Horticultural 
Societies. 
In the meantime it was remembered that there was an area in the 
upper Mississippi Valley, five times larger than that of the State of New 
York, where great crops of grain and grasses were grown, and where corn 
was King. In all this vast territory the Esopus, Northern Spy, Rhode Island 
Greening, Baldwin, Yellow Newtown and many other highly prized apples 
of the Atlantic Coast, were, and are, almost a total failure, seen only as 
