10 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
WESTERN NEW YORK. 
Prominent Nurserymen and Profes¬ 
sors at THE Annual Meeting—The 
Address of President Barry. 
The forty-second annual meeting of the Western New York 
Horticultural Society was held at Rochester on January 27-28. 
Among those present were the following : Irving Rouse, Lewis 
Chase, Rochester ; S. D. Willard, Geneva ; Wing R. Smith, 
Syracuse; H. S. Wiley, Cayuga; Theodore S. Hubbard, Geneva; 
George A. Sweet, Dansville ; E. C. Pierson, Waterloo ; C. L. 
Hoag, Lockport; J. J. Harrison, Painesville, Ohio; C. F. Mc¬ 
Nair, Moorestown, N. J.; Nelson Bogue, Batavia, N. Y.; George 
Ellwanger, Robert Ades, John Charlton, C. M. Hooker, Roch¬ 
ester; C. H. Perkins, C. W. Stuart, Newark, N. Y.; George G. 
Atwood, E. A. Bronson, Geneva, N. Y.; Virgil Bogue, Albion; 
D. Bogue, Medina; VV. P. Rupert, Seneca. 
Also M. B. Waite, pathologist department of agriculture^ 
at Washington, D. C.; Professor Isaac P. Roberts, director 
of the College of Agriculture at Cornell University; Professor 
M. V. Slingerland, assistant entomologist of Cornell University 
Experiment Station; Dr. G. C. Caldwell, chemist of Cornell 
University; Professor W. H. Jordan, director of the New York 
State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva; Professor W. 
R. Lazenry, dean of the Department of Horticulture and For¬ 
estry, Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio, and Professor 
Victor H. Lowe, entomologist of th.e New York State Experi¬ 
ment Station, Geneva. 
The fruit exhibit was exceptionally good. The best two ex¬ 
hibits were those of the Geneva Experiment Station and the 
exhibit of the Ellwanger & Barry nurseries. The first in¬ 
cluded 1x4 varieties of apples, pears and quinces. The Ell¬ 
wanger & Barry exhibit showed 150 varieties of grapes, apples, 
pears, quinces and plums. 
President William C. Barry, in his annual address, referred 
to the importance of fruit growing and to the successful socie¬ 
ties in Boston and Philadelphia, which own horticultural halls 
and to the state societies throughout the country. He hoped 
to see the membership of the Western New York Society reach 
a total of 500 soon. President Barry reviewed the fruit season 
of 1896 in Western New York—a favorable season for apples 
and an enormous crop resulting in discouraging prices. The 
lessons resulting were the necessity for greater care in packing 
and marketing the crops, the need of storage houses and a 
diversity of fruit. He endorsed the Jonathan apple and the 
recently introduced varieties of the plum raised by Luther 
Burbank, of California. 
The crop of pears was unusually small and the fruit com¬ 
manded good prices; the plum and cherry crops were almost 
failures. Peaches, northern grown, were very scarce. Prices 
were low in consequence of a large supply and the inability to 
market it advantageously. As the years pass and experience 
increases it becomes evident that a greater variety of products 
is necessary and the planter should cultivate fruits for the 
various seasons of the year, thus giving employment to a 
regular force of hands who on account of their proficiency 
become indispensable on the fruit farm. 
President Barry reviewed the weather conditions of 1896, 
which veterans in the fruit growing business declare was ex¬ 
traordinary and abnormal in all respects. Reference was made 
to the death of William Brown Smith, the veteran nurseryman 
of Syracuse; Professor Albert Nelson Prentiss, of Ithaca; John 
K. Beckwith, of the nursery firm of H. and J. R. Beckwith. 
Brighton, N. Y., and Ernest Gustavus Lodeman of Ithaca, who 
committed suicide. 
A long and varied programme was presented amid lively 
discussion, in which many of the 400 in attendance partici¬ 
pated. Discussing the newer varieties of plums, S. D. Willard, 
of Geneva, traced the progress of many varieties of plums 
which had been introduced into this country from Japan and 
the countries of Europe. He prophesied plums in the next 
ten years which will be far superior to any known variety of 
the present time. 
A resolution was introduced by G. C. Snow, of Penn Yan, 
to the effect that an effort be made by the society to secure 
national legislation in placing a high duty on fruit imports_ 
The resolution was aimed especially at Canadian gardeners, 
whose prodncts are admitted to the United States free of duty. 
The decision promised to be more political than horticultural, 
and at President Barry’s request the resoJution was withdrawn. 
EASTERN APPLE ORCHARDS. 
To get a proper respect for the apple one should take a trip 
through New York and New England in apple blossom time, 
says the Fruit Grower s Journal. A hundred acres of apple 
blossoms is a sight one may see in duplicate many and many a 
time in the Empire State; and in New England one will be 
surprised to see apple trees planted before King George III 
was big enough to even think of taxing tea or even of drinking 
it. Apple trees from seventy-five to two hundred years old 
may be seen flourishing around in stray fence corners (stone 
fence corners) or blooming and bearing in the woods that 
cover the hills and hollows of the land of our pilgrin:i fathers. 
If you ask how these apple trees came to stray out into the 
woods, the people if they know will tell you that the woods 
strayed into the apple orchards; that the land was once all 
under cultivation, and that the woods now cover abandoned 
farms. The inhabitants fled to better soil, but the apple trees 
stayed by the old farm. 
A New Jersery nurseryman says: “In connection with 
Japanese plums, I am reminded of words of caution spoken 
by Professor Bailey as to the probability of these plums 
developing some weakness. I know of some four or five 
hundred trees which have been growing for some seasons on 
the sandy soil of this state and are thoroughly infested with 
black knot. Although young and growing thrifty, and with 
smooth healthy bark, the knot is breaking out on most of the 
trees in from one to four or five places. 
“ This is the only case of the kind I am aware of, but it 
seems to prove the Japan plum is not proof against the enemy. 
It will be of interest to watch the development and see if the 
tree will be able to overcome the difficulty.’’ 
The National Nurseryman one year at $1. You can 
lose but little and you may gain much. Again and again 
have our subscribers said : “A single issue was worth more to 
me than the price of a year’s subscription.’’ 
CHEERFULLY RENEW. 
West Jersey Nursery Co., Stanton B. Cole, Bridgeton, N. J. 
—“We cheerfully enclose $1 to renew our subscription to The Na¬ 
tional Nurseryman.” 
