JL ^ 
'dt/\ ' \ 
*4 
- _i: 
ft ^5 
jCs? 
If 
i 
Vol. LXI. No. 2752. 
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 25, 1902. 
$t PER YEAR. 
COLD COUNTRY FRUIT PROBLEMS. 
THE RUSSIAN APPLE AND ITS OUTCOME. 
Behavior in the Northwest. 
The problems of the pioneer are always difficult and 
expensive. It was only through repeated failure and 
financial loss that the planters of the Northwest were 
forced to realize that the “Inland Empire” represents 
a distinct and peculiar territory. It has its own prob¬ 
lems to face, and the standard varieties of the East 
did not meet them. Two solutions were offered: 
First, the amelioration and improvement of the native 
crab; second, the importation of improved varieties 
from geographical regions having similar conditions 
to our own. The carrying out of this second theory 
by Prof. J. L. Budd in the importation of 100 or more 
Russian varieties of apples, is well known. This move 
was hailed with delight, and much was expected of 
them—too much, in fact. The statement that a va¬ 
riety was a Russian was ample recommendation, ar.d 
without further investigation or trial it was planted 
—often in a large way. Out of this experience, cover¬ 
ing a vast territory, and with a large list of varie¬ 
ties, there came the most varying results and con¬ 
clusions; a few were very favorable, most otherwise. 
This conflicting testimony caused internal friction in 
the horticultural family 
of the Northwest, and 
even the horticultural so¬ 
ciety officers were support¬ 
ed on account of their 
Russian or anti-Russian 
sentiments. In the midst 
of this controversy, utter¬ 
ed more than a decade 
ago, Prof. Bailey made 
the following remark, 
which indicated a clear 
grasp of the situation, and 
contained a prophecy that 
is now in the beginning of 
realization: 
“The Northwest must 
have an unusually hardy 
class of fruits, and any 
type -which will grow there 
should be encouraged. The 
Russian is simply one of 
these types, the Siberian 
and native crabs being 
others. But, inasmuch as 
the Russian type is the most highly developed of 
them, it follows that quick results are to be expected 
from it. If the Russian apples and the crabs are more 
or less adapted to the Northwest, I feel sure that 
American seedlings of them will be still better adapt¬ 
ed to those conditions as a whole. I therefore regard 
the Russian importations to be of benefit to our hor¬ 
ticulture, but I look upon them as a means rather 
than as an end. The history of our horticulture 
everywhere emphasizes the probability of a secondary 
and more important outcome.” 
Without doubt the most striking example of this 
“secondary outcome” is to be found in the Patten's 
Greening, a variety originated by C. G. Patten, of 
Charles City, Iowa. To-day it stands out as the only 
apple of American origin which finds a place in the 
Minnesota Horticultural Society list, “of the first de¬ 
gree of hardiness for planting in Minnesota.” It is 
equally prized in the Dakotas and farther north. The 
present moist season has been an exceptionally bad 
one for twig blight in Iowa. The latter part of June 
the writer had the pleasure of visiting the parent tree 
of this variety. It is situated in a seedling orchard, 
and surrounding it are a number of varieties, all of 
which were more or less blighted, yet this old tree 
showed scarcely a trace of it. Patten’s Greening is a 
cross between the Duchess (a Russian) and the Rhode 
Island Greening. The fruit is oblate to roundish, 
medium to large; color light green, sometimes slight¬ 
ly blushed with red on one side; flesh yellowish white 
and subacid; season, late Fall and early Winter; fair 
for eating and an excellent cooker. The tree is well 
shouldered and apparently as hardy as the Duchess. 
A number of other seedlings of Russian-American 
origin are attracting attention, and no doubt in tne 
skilled hands of some Patten or Gideon greater things 
are yet to come. a. t. erwin. 
Iowa Agricultural College, Ames, Iowa. 
TOBACCO DUST AS INSECTICIDE. 
Who knows but that there are soil or atmospheric 
conditions under which the free application of to¬ 
bacco dust might act injuriously to watermelon 
vines? Yet I have used this dust annually for many 
years, and in greatest liberality, on all sorts of vine 
plants, cucumbers, squashes, muskmelons, water¬ 
melons, etc., as well as on cabbages, eggplant, etc., 
without ever noticing the least ill-effect on the plants. 
During severe visitations of the Yellow-striped beetle 
I have kept the soil around the plants covered inch 
deep, and the vines, while small, actually hidden un¬ 
der the dust coat, yet have never seen even a water¬ 
melon plant suffer except from the ravenous appetite 
of the beetles, which sometimes do damage in spite 
of lighter applications of tobacco dust. This latter 
contains perhaps a larger percentage of potash than 
found in the average sample of good fresh wood 
ashes, but this potash seems to be in a neutral form, 
and therefore harmless, even in large doses, to any 
of our farm and garden crops. With us the striped 
beetle this season did not appear in the customarv 
large numbers, and one or two light applications of 
tobacco dust have sufficed to carry our plants safely 
through the period of danger from that source. \et 
the continued and excessive rains have been disastrous 
to the melon crop, and watermelons especially were 
an entire failure. Most of the plants were killed out¬ 
right, and those that survived only started into a late 
growth with the beginning of drier and warmer 
weather. By locating the cucumber and Winter 
squash vines in the sweet corn patch in the farthest 
corner of the premises, and far away from the vine 
patches of former years, I have succeeded in keep¬ 
ing the plants almost entirely unharmed by beetles 
and bugs, and shall have a better crop than for many 
years. t. ureiner. 
Niagara Co., N. Y. 
BLACK BEN DAVIS APPLE AT HOME. 
VAN DEMAN SEES THE TREE. 
Is It a Distinct Variety? 
We are quite familiar with the controversy about 
the Black Ben Davis-Gano apple matter, which has 
occupied the attention of the horticultural public for 
some time past. My own former opinion was not 
positive as to whether it was a variety distinct from 
Gano, until after a trip made this Fall to Washing¬ 
ton County, Arkansas. It was my purpose to visit the 
home of this apple, if such a place could be found; 
for this has long been a doubtful question in the minds 
of many others, as well as in my own. As I have re¬ 
peatedly said before in The R. N.-Y., the truth is what 
we need to know, no matter whom it helps or hurts, 
in this controversy. The second and third days of 
October this year I spent in looking up the facts from 
those who now live where the apple was said to have 
originated. They are honest country people, if I am 
any judge of human nature. About five or six miles 
from Lincoln, Ark., I was shown by two old people 
who live there the spot where the old seedling tree 
stood at the rear of their log cabin. It died in 1881), 
principally from the shock of cutting off a part of the 
tree that hung over the shed kitchen until the year 
before. I learned from sev¬ 
eral of the neighbors who 
had long lived there, that 
they were well acquainted 
with the old tree and its 
fruit; that it came up from 
seed soon after the cabin 
was built and a little clear¬ 
ing made in the woods. It 
was not in an orchard row, 
nor was it moved from 
where it came up. Apples 
were taken off it and 
hauled by wagon to Kan¬ 
sas by one man I talked 
with, who said he liked 
them to top off his loads, 
because of their size, 
beauty and good quality. 
The variety gets the 
name Black Ben Davis 
from the fact that Rev. 
John Black had the cabin 
built for his use and lived 
there when the seedling 
grew up. A man named Reagan lived in the cabin 
after Parson Black left, and now a Mr. Thomas lives 
there. Fortunately, a Mr. G. L. Guthrie cut scions 
from the old tree in 1882, grafted them into seedling 
roots and grew them in a little nursery row in his 
garden. Ten of these were planted, when one-year- 
old, in his orchard, one died and I saw the other nine 
in bearing this Fall. The farm is now owned by John 
F. Bain. The trees were loaded with big red apples, 
of which I plucked a number to keep until they are 
fit to examine for flavor, etc. Specimens of Ben Davis 
were taken from the same orchard, and Gano from 
one not far distant, to use for comparison. I visited 
the farm of one of the best fruit growers in the 
county, who had long known the Black Ben Davis, 
he said, and the fact that he had an orchard of 58 
acres of it, now four years old, and a determination 
to plant 75 acres more of the same is sufficient evi¬ 
dence of his faith in it. Many others have planted 
of it after seeing the bearing trees on the Bain farm. 
My own judgment is, after seeing the fruit of undoubt¬ 
ed identity, that there is a distinct variety called Black 
Ben Davis. It is solid red, with no semblance of 
stripes on any specimen that I saw, while Gano is 
lighter in color and often indistinctly striped. As to 
A WESTERN SEEDLING FROM DUCHESS AND RHODE ISLAND GREENING. Fio. 291. 
