PRACTICAL PAPERS—FRUIT GROWING. 
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late, even until they become worthless; they might as well 
rot as to lose their flavor. Perhaps we are yet to find our 
best late keeping apple. New varieties for popular favor are 
constantly being presented ; new seedlings are being brought 
into notice. A good rule to govern the propagator is to reject 
all that do not prove superior in tree or fruit to those already 
known, ripening at the same season. We want improvement, 
sure and certain progress. To this standard all new fruit 
should be brought. Far too large a proportion of our orch¬ 
ards are set to summer and fall fruit. Late fall apples may be 
used profitably for cider, but where is the profit of large quan¬ 
tities of fruit ripening in August and September, such as Fall 
Stripe, deficient in juice and, if made into cider, hardly in 
drinkable condition more than forty-eight hours. Cider to be 
of any value must be from late fall apples, manufactured after 
the heat of the autumn is over. The earliest apple generally 
brings a good price, as the market is seldom over-stocked at 
that season. 
We want above all hardy varieties. No beauty of form or 
excellence of quality can atone for want of hardiness. 
The impression is very general, that trees to be of any value 
should be grown here, and that the planting of trees from 
abroad has been the chief cause of failure. The trouble is 
not that the trees have been grown abroad, but in the man¬ 
ner in which they have been grown and in the varieties. If 
they have been stimulated in their growth by an excessive use 
of manure, or are such varieties as will not stand our climate, 
of course they are„of no value ; but if a tree is properly grown 
and of the right kind it matters little whether it comes from 
New York, Ohio or Missouri, if it comes in good condition. 
Trees reproduced by grafting hold the same characteristics, 
the same constitutional vigor wherever grown. I never have 
known a lot of trees brought from the east that were all, or 
even a majority of them, of hardy sorts. Large quantities of 
sweet cherries were sold the past season in our state under the 
pretence that grafting on the Mahaieb stock made the tree hardy 
enough for Wisconsin, when every propagator knows that the 
