440 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
with all fruits, the writer has for many years contended that 
quality must be subordinate. 
First, the staple fruit itself in some form—for the sight, for 
breeding new and hardier sorts from—for use in the kitchen, 
the children, for market; afterwards the delicate, amateur 
qualities, which, however, we would as far as possible and most 
gladly combine with the primer qualifications. Too much stress 
can scarcely be laid on the choice of varieties; and more can and 
will be made from orchards of those sure kinds, than millions 
of tender apple tree weeds, that freeze down the first hard 
winter. 
Comparisons are odious, but to-day, for our planting almost 
anywhere in the North-west, we would go further and give 
more for seedlings of approved fruitful seedling trees, which 
tended to beget their kind, or trees grafted from such proved 
seedlings, yes more, fifty times over, than for all the Baldwins, 
Greenings and Spitzenbergs of Christendom. 
If we a had a subject to name for discussion in fruit-growing, 
it would be to ascertain, if possible, what was the one most 
reliable sort of apple, pear, plum, cherry, grape, &c., ©f which, 
if a man set out a tree or plant, there might be a reasonable 
prospecUhe would “ thank God and take courage.” 
The writer feels that there are yet many most valuable vari¬ 
eties of fruit not “ brought out,*’ and doubtless away in some 
distant nook or corner of the State, may have been flourishing 
for these last ten years past, in modest and most fruitful worth; 
seedlings that will be better worth grafting for Wisconsin, than 
any imported variety whatsoever. Be it remembered, we do 
not urge indiscriminate propagation or planting of ordinary 
seedlings; but it is to search among them for superior sorts, 
adapted to Wisconsin soil and climate, even as we would hun* 
for gold or diamonds among pebbles. 
On that account, all seedling orchards and nurseries are to 
us objects of interest; and so with experimenting from selected 
seed of hardy varietes — a most fruitful and neglected theme. 
And if we were to hunt and try a life-time in vain for some¬ 
thing valuable in that direction, we should still know W'e had 
