78 
THE NATIONAI 
NURSERYMAN. 
TESTING AND DISSEMINATION OF NEW FRUITS. 
C. L. Watrous read the following paper: 
It used to be said in the forests of my boyhood, tliat old dogs are 
good to teaeli young ones liow to Imnt bear. Tins, on the theory, of 
course, tliat the memory of scratches teaches to beware of the claws. 
If this was a wise saying, these young men may be patient with a little 
advice from an old one. Young men reach out after new things. 
Reading glowing accounts of behavior of new plants, they naturallj' 
and rigid fully desire to give these benetits to their customers. Xursery- 
men should be the first to test all promising fruits and plants. They 
must also liear the responsibility of putting these novelties into the 
orchards and vineyards and gardens of the peo]de. or of withholding 
them because of unworthiness, and the last is as important as the first. 
It nnpy be true, as some claim, that there is no idace of punishment 
heri'after, but, if there is none, one ought to be made for the punish¬ 
ment of those men who, having learned the worthlessness of a tree or 
plant, refuse to tell the truth, but continue to infiict it upon the people. 
In forecasting the ]u-obable future behavior of any novelty lies a broad 
field for the exercise of judgment. The wusdom of that judgment 
must be according to the broad or narrow Ijasis of scholarship and 
experience of the individual ; for, it is not possible or advisable to hold 
back every new variety until experience has fully demonstrated its 
strength or weakness. That would be to deprive our customers for too 
long a period of its possible benefits. This is true, because the highest 
authoiities agree that experience cannot have fixed the value of a new 
variety until it has been tested in any botanical region during a period 
of at least as long as the ordinary lifetime of an individual of its sjiecies. 
There can be no doubt of the truth and wisdom of that maxim. F''oreign 
trees and plants often flourish in youth but show decrepitude sooner 
than natives. The Scotch pine and White pine are instances where a 
foreign tree has been well tested in comparison with a native. 1 speak 
especially of their behavior in our i)rairie regions. For the first ten 
years the ff)reign tree outstrips the native in health and strength of 
growth, but after twenty years the foreign tree shows sign of old age 
and decrepitude follows apace, while the native has just begun a long 
life of vigorous usefulness, A foreign peach was introduced into Iowa 
and its introducer had so much confidence in its value that he published 
a statement that a certain promising native was none other than his 
foreigner. But mark tlie sequel. The reports show, this spring, the 
native alive and vigorous, while, from the whence the foreigner 
was sent out, the simple and true report comes “ The trees are all dead.” 
Similar instances could be multiplied. The reason is ])lain to the 
student of geographical botany. He learns that every region has its 
own vegetation exactly as it has its own races of men and animals. Dr. 
I trailer, in the introduction to his history of our civil war, says that it 
takes at least four generations of men for a. race to become physically 
adapted to the environments of life in a dilferent climate and, moreover, 
that when the adaptation has been accomplished profound changes in 
constitution and physical habit will be found to have taken place. 
These changes in constitution, he tells us, are not effected without 
great losses of life, especially to the young, during the process. What 
is true of men is much more true of trees, since men are able to modify 
the effects of climatic changes by changes of clothing, food and habits 
of life, while the tree or plant must abide in nakedness all the blasts 
that blow. 
Tlie life of the nurseryman is full of anxiety and labor, but when he 
has leisure for the study of the natural sciences underlying his hard 
work, he enters one of the most fascinating fields of human inquiry. 
How do the vegetable growths of dilferent regions vary from each 
other V Which are similar V Which are unlike, and why V Modern 
transportatiem is constantly bringing to our doors novelties from all 
(piarters of the globe at high prices, justified by glowing descriptions 
and promises. The young man who gives his leisure hours to the 
studies I am urging will soon have a mass of facts by which to test the 
probable truth or falsity of these highly colored prospectuses. There 
is no other class of men than the nurserymen upon whose shoulders 
lies so luiavily the responsibility of knowing the reasonable probability 
in these cases and of being willing to walk in the i)aths of conservatism 
and truth, even at the risk of losing a few immediate dollars. At the 
AVTrld’s Fair it was instructive to note that the apples of our Atlantic 
region came back from the I’acific coast essentially new fruits. Rome 
Beauty, Wagener and Newtown Pipj)in came back from Australia under 
not only new names, but under such disguises of color, form and general 
appearance, that the masquerade was not detected for many days. In 
due time, men will select seedlings grown there that will serve them 
much better than these changlings. \Ahy do all our Jainin plums 
bloom t(X) early for our seasons, though Japan extends further north 
than we are ? 1 never could see exactly Avhy, until a chamte letter 
from a horticultural acapiaintance, dated Yokohama, January 16th, 
mentioned casually, “The i)lum trees are in lull bloom here now.” 
That moist and sea-girt isle is not afflicted with our late frosts and the 
trees have found it safe to bloom early, while ours have learned from 
bitter experience to keej) their winter tlannels on later. By crossing 
and breeding we shall, of course, in due time have varieties of plums 
liaving many of' the good qualities of the Japanese, but with the Ameri¬ 
can habit of reasonably late blooming. The failure of most European 
fruits and plants in Atlantic America is because they have been modi¬ 
fied through countless generations by a warm Gulf Stream on their 
west, while ours have been buffeted by cold blasts from the lofty 
heights of our interior mountains. Ignorance of these studies has cost 
vast sums of money, paid out for Russian fruits for idauting, not oidy 
in an entirely different climate, but, at least a thousand miles nearer the 
equator than their place of origin. It is our misfortune that these 
studies are so much neglected, even by those to whom we have a right 
to look for knowledge and light. A certain class of plums was con¬ 
demned by the united verdict of the best horticulturists of a ]U'airie 
state, west of the Mississippi, and a professor in charge of a government 
experiment station offered as a ground why this verdict should be set 
aside an article from a newspaper in Vermont, giving the experience of 
some correspondent there, saying com])lacently, this tells the true story. 
The fact that a thousand miles might be exjjected to change the beliavior 
of fruits was either unknown, or ignored by tliis blind leader of the 
Wind. Ignorance is the most charitable excuse. 
My advice, in brief, to the young nurseryman is, look with reasonable 
suspicion upon the claims of every novelty from any region, forei.gn or 
domestic, whose botanical asix'cts are different from your own. Gather 
up carefully every promising new seedling of your own region. It has 
been found at the exhibits of the American Pomological Society through 
all the years of its existence that the prize fruits have generally been 
grown in the region of their origin. It is safer to test a new candidate 
for favor with an excess of caution than to risk your reputation in 
recommending it to your customers before you know its strength and 
its weaknesses. 
Allow me, in closing, to express one asi)iration. iMay you all find it 
easy at the i)eai'ly gates to answer the ciuestions of St. Peter touching 
your conduct while you lived a nurseryman on earth. 
WRONG HORTICULTURAL LAWS. 
The paper of Charles J. Brown, Rochester, was as 
follows : 
I have chosen this topic because I bedieve the average nurseryman 
little realizes the threatened injury from local laws regarding the dis¬ 
semination of nursery stock. All retailers have had to contend with 
the old law requiring license which has run its course in many of the 
states; far worse, however, are the laws enacted by the states of Oregon 
and Washington. All nurserymen should read these laws as affording 
a good illustration of what unwise legislators may do when backed up 
by constituents who want office, or who are too shortsighted to realize 
the vdtimate harm and injustice of such laws, and the true remedy for 
the evils they seek to remedy. 
A few years ago we were attracted to tlie Pacific coast as a most 
promising fruit country—one in which we would do Avell to establish 
ourselves early and by careful work we expected idtimately to Imild 
up a good trade. All Avent along nicely until the states began to dis¬ 
cuss legal remedies for their horticultural troubles. 
First came the law requiring all stock to be disinfected under most 
exacting regulations, and all absolutely under the control of local men, 
many of whom had no sense of justice and no knoAvledge of trees or 
their enemies. 
{Continued on page 8S.) 
