THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
105 
WESTERN WHOLESALERS. 
The semi-annual meeting of the Western Wholesale Nursery¬ 
men’s Association was held at the Centrapolis hotel, Kansas 
City, July 9th. President A L. Brooke, presided Twenty 
members were present, among them being : Peter Youngers 
and A. J. Brown, Geneva, Neb.; C. F. Stanbury, Stanbury, 
Mo.; E. D. Virden, Grand Junction, Col.; J. L. Howard, 
Shenandoah, la.; J. D. Stevens, Cameron, Mo.; F. H. Stan- 
nard, Ottawa, Kan.; E. J. Holman, Leavenworth, Kan.; A. L. 
Brooke, Topeka, Kan.; J. H. Skinner, Topeka ; W. Kelly, 
Marion, la.; W. P. Bates, Winfield, Kan.; and D N. Bates, 
Floral, Kan. It was reported that somewhat less than an 
average amount of stock was on hand. The following officers 
were elected : President, A. L. Brooke, Topeka ; vice-presi¬ 
dent, R. H. Blair, Kansas City ; secretary and treasurer, E. J. 
Holman, Leavenworth. 
APPLE SHIPPERS TO MEET. 
The eighth annual meeting of the National Apple Shippers 
Association will be held in Rochester, N. Y., August 6th. At 
the convention of 1901 in Toronto, E. N. Loomis, of New 
York city, stated that the yield of apples in the United States 
annually is about 40,000,000 barrels of green fruit. Of this 
quantity about 25,000 000 barrels are marketed green, the 
remainder being dried, made into cider, or wasted during the 
process of harvesting. Niagara and Orleans counties, in New 
York state, have raised, in a single season, as high as 7,000,000 
barrels of the best kind of market apples. 
Mr. Loomis also gave some interesting statistics regarding 
the export trade in apples. In the year 1900 dried apples to 
the amount of 34,964,010 pounds were exported from the 
United States, while during 1897, which was what is called a 
“ good fruit year,” green apples to the amount of 1,503,981 
barrels were exported. The apple crop of the United States 
for 1900 was worth about $60,000,000 to the growers. Mr. 
Loomis called attention to the fact that a cold storage house 
had been erected in Rochester with a capacity of 100,000 
barrrels, and another of the same capacity at Albion, N. Y. 
WOULD HAVE TO AMEND CONSTITUTION. 
J. M. Underwood, Lake City, Minn., recently discussed 
before his state horticultural society the subject of legal pro¬ 
tection for the owner of new productions in the plant world. 
In the discussion that ensued A. B. Choate said that in his 
judgment a man may be protected legally by making a con¬ 
tract with every man he sells to, to the effect that this man 
shall not sell to any one else, and if he does the producer or 
originator can sue him for damages. “ That would do in a 
measure, but it is not an adequate protection. He ought not 
only to be able to collect damages, but, as Mr. Underwood 
says, it ought to be a misdemeanor. He ought to be punished 
if he violates the law.” 
L. R. Moyer said : “ It seems to me that on general grounds 
there ought to be some protection to the originator of new 
fruits, still to get such protection there would have to be a 
national law, and to have such a law would require an amend¬ 
ment of the constitution. If you remember the constitution it 
provides that congress may grant to authors and inventors a 
patent for the protection of their rights, but we cannot say 
that a producer of a new fruit is either an author or inventor. 
It is rather a gift of God, and it cannot be covered by a 
national law until we have a constitutional amendment to cover 
it, and you all know how difficult it is to amend the constitu¬ 
tion of the United States. VVe might pass a resolution approv¬ 
ing an amendment to the constitution, but it would take a long 
time to adopt it.” 
AS TO NOVELTIES. 
The Missouri State Horticultural Society has resolved after 
a lengthy “whereas” to advise all fruit planters not to bother 
with new varieties until they have been solemnly tested and 
approved by the pomologist of some state or nation. The idea 
is to prevent the purchase by planters to their loss and dis¬ 
couragement of doubtful new, renamed, misnamed or untried 
fruits and plants, often represented to have special merits, con¬ 
trary to the real facts, until thorough trials have been made by 
the experiment stations, as disinterested parties. This is 
excellent theory, but the hustling gardener and fruit-grower, 
as well as the up-to-date amateur, will scarcely consent to 
wait for official endorsements before testing such varieties as 
may appear superior in some respect to those he already 
grows. Official trials of new or little known economic plants 
made at public expense are very well as far as they go, and are 
undoubtedly useful in eliminating certain gross frauds in the 
dissemination of so-called novelties, but they will scarcely 
replace local tests made by wide-awake planters.—Rural New 
Yorker. 
AN APPLE CONGRESS. 
Two of the leading fruit free experts of the United States, 
H. L. Messick of Quincy and A. J. Dunnigan of Springfield, 
Ill., were at the Southern hotel recently in consultation with 
orchard men of St. Louis and vicinity, says Coleman’s Rural 
World. It is proposed to hold an apple congress in St. Louis 
next December, at which apple growers and dealers from all 
parts of the world will meet to discuss questions of mutual 
interest. Similar congresses for raisers of all kinds of fruit 
are planned for the World’s Fair period. As St. Louis is the 
center of the greatest apple-producing section on the globe, 
it is deemed proper that the apple-growers should start the 
movement for a universal fruit congress. Among those 
interested in the proposed congress are : H. C. Cupp, of Fall 
Creek, Ill., president of the Mississippi Valley Apple Growers’ 
Association ; C. H. Williamson, of Quincy ; E. C. Wilson, of 
Hannibal, and J. M. Crow, of Louisiana, Mo. 
Mr. Messick is an expert on pruning and treating trees, 
while Mr. Dunigan makes a specialty of planting. The 
former has planted over 1,000,000 fruit trees in the last forty 
years, he says, and expects to get in a few hundred thousand 
more in course of time. He calls himself a “ tree doctor,” 
and it is his custom each year to visit the large commercial 
orchards of Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, 
Colorado and New Mexico. Mr. Messick says the greatest 
apple country in the world is, without doubt, along the 
Mississippi and Missouri river bluffs and in Northern Arkan¬ 
sas, Southwest Missouri, Eastern Kansas and other portions of 
the same states, where there is a rocky foundation and plenty 
of iron in the soil. 
