State Convention—Success ys. Failure. 
437 
been filled up or replanted for the second or third time. But few 
varieties can be used with safety in such places, and these need espe¬ 
cial care until they are well established. In filling in the old va¬ 
cancies, use only such varieties as are perfectly satisfactory in the 
same locality, or still better, some of the exceedingly hardy varie¬ 
ties now grown in most nurseries, as Walbridge, Duchess, and 
Plumb’s Cider, with Utters and Fameuse, if you dare to. But, if 
you can do no better, plant some of the improved Siberians, of 
which there is now a fair list for all purposes and seasons, from the 
sharp tart and the mildest sub-acid, to a pure sweet. I mention 
this to show that no utter-failure need be experienced, but that 
all may provide themselves with good home-grown apples, pro¬ 
vided they adapt themselves to the natural conditions and surround¬ 
ings. 
A combination of the first-named conditions of warm aspect and 
rich soil, in connection with our climate of extreme and sudden 
changes of temperature, has brought a stigma upon the pomology 
of our fair State, and discouragement to tree-planters that has be¬ 
come a serious bar to our progress toward home production. 
This general destruction of so large a portion of these south side- 
hill orchards, especially those that have a dense shelter from the 
west winds, is most disastrous and wide-spread, from the fact of these 
locations being chosen or prepared for the greater portions of the 
original plantings, and hence continued from mere force of habit 
or blind notions of the past. 
That there should be a radical change of practices, any one may 
see that will look around for the examples of success or failure. 
In one trip of ten miles overland, from Poynette Station to Rio, 
in this State, 1 passed thirteen orchards, all on a southern slope, 
with more or less westward shelter and wind-breaks, except two. 
All of these sunny-side and sheltered orchards are deemed a 
failure; some of them a total failure. The two which are 
a decided success are on the north and northwest side of a 
woody bluff, with a gentle slope to the north. These orchards 
have been growing and fruiting for the last twenty to twenty- 
seven years. They are remarkably fruitful, and have eveiy 
promise of long life and vigor. These orchards are the pro¬ 
perty of F. C. Curtis and his brother, Rocky Run. One orchard of 
ordinary trees, two hundred in number, owned by M. N. Peck, was 
