AMERICAN POMOEOGICAE SOCIETY 
58 
while apparently quite hardy, are liable to be injured by early fall frosts 
before the fruit is properly matured. 
Cherries: A few samples of the Morello and Russian varieties have been 
produced, but nothing has been accomplished thus far to indicate that they 
can be grown successfully as a crop. The so-called Compass cherry, a Min* 
nesota hybrid cherry-plum, does fairly well where the americana plums can 
be grown. 
A FEW OBSERVATIONS ON THE CONDUCT OF TREES. 
Benj. Buckman, Illinois. 
It seems to me that the more I study on the fruit question the less I 
know. In one year a variety seems to possess all the merits belonging to a 
first class fruit, but a few years later defects show up that materially 
change my views. 
There seems to be about (or over) two weeks between the flowering 
period of the different varieties of apples, but then again one variety may 
put out all of its blossoms within a few days while other kinds habitually 
have seemingly adventitious buds that (depending on the weather and 
other conditions) send out more and more fruit buds for an indefinite time. 
In the latter case a single freeze does not necessarily mean the loss of 
a crop of apples. I find myself at fault in relying upon my description 
of a variety from one, or even two years’ fruiting. Nothing less than three 
descriptions can give even reasonable accuracy, and these modified by each 
other finally resolved into one. 
This season, 1912, abnormally dry and hot, gave All Summer about one- 
third its normal size while Goff and White Astrachan seemed even larger and 
finer than usual. 
Judging by this season alone many fall apples would be rated as summer 
kinds and many winter, as fall apples. In some seasons the calyx of a 
variety may be open, in another closed. 
The same idea applies more or less to other parts, as color, five-sided- 
ness, irregularities, bumps, warts, specks, calyx tubes, watered flesh and 
core, etc. 
Some fruits, and all to a greater or less extent, are influenced much 
by soil. In my soil the Dunlap is practically a worthless strawberry, a few 
miles distant it is the very best. I cannot tell just what each individual 
variety needs to bring it to its best estate; but the fact remains that each 
variety is an individual as with humans and needs special treatment, whether 
it gets it or not. 
Again, what constitutes a desirable apple? For several years I have 
tried to convince buyers in my market (S'pringfield) that Early Joe was 
worth more than the excruciatingly sour and green Russians that my 
sellers hauled to market. “No, no,” they would say “they are too small” 
