The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-07-16
AarirnMnraL.
t. III. HosKINs. Newport. VT. Editor.
Orchards In Orleans County.

nurserymen out of the county to furnish
orchards have failed-I say their efforts
failed, because believe they were very
DESTROYS that their trees should live
Agents and statesmen may be Indifferent
but nurserymen desire to sell live trees
and trees that will continue to live. This
motive actuated Mr.. B. Bryant in
building up the nursery business at
Derby, and has been the ambition of DR.
Hoskins of Newport. Trees were some
times sold without sufficiently full trial
and disappointed both seller and buyer
but at the nursery many trees have been
burned up because the trial proved them
too tender for this climate. DR.. Hoskins
is not excelled in his knowledge of pc.
mology by any man in northern Vermont,
and if he only recommends few kinds
it is because he has found but few kinds
hardy. The ordinary farmer, who thinks
all trees are about alike if they receive the
same care, may try to set grated fruit
with the same indifference to hardness
that seedlings were set in earlier days
but he will find the gratis of popular va
rieties possess less vitality than the
seedlings from our native apples. The
Baldwin or Greening was chosen from
among the thousands of Seeding trees
not for hardness, but for size and general
excellence as winter apple. They were
seedlings of much milder climate than
northern Vermont. The New York
nurserymen cannot know by any expert
ence Of their own what trees will thrive
here, and their agents sell trees that can
not live with few varieties that will
live. The trees lately delivered in Orleans
county were good trees in their smooth,
straight trunks, well-set branches and
roots, and also good trees to grow the first
season; but they are not good trees to en-
dure. My neighbor, among fifty trees that
had grown two seasons, found eighteen
dead ones this spring. In replacing the
eighteen there was the same indiffer-
ence as at first in regard to varieties. The
success of DR.. Hoskins in growing an or
chard does not prove that apple-trees in
general may be freely planted with good
prospect of success. And the fact that
some very thriving orchards are of trees
from the doctors nursery, does not prove
that his trees are better than others. The
lesson really teaches that good trees of
the hardest varieties are likely to thrive.
am afraid that thousands of trees will
be sold with the idea that DR.. Hoskins
has proved that apple-trees can be grown,
while his whole and very important ex.
perience proves that only few varieties
are reliable. a.. Ell.
REMARKS BY AGRICULTURAL EDITOR.
One important point in regard to the
early seeding orchards of northern Yer
mont is overlooked by Mr.. Jameson. The
seedlings were grown in small nurseries
for five or six years before being set out in
orchards. In that time the winters de-
stroyed most of the less hardy trees, and
those that we've left were such as had the
most power of resistance. But the trouble
with all Seeding orchards is that hardly
more than five per cent of the trees will
produce eatable fruit. The rest had to
be used for cider, and as the temperance
reform made cider unpopular, the old
orchards, when they went to decay, were
not again replaced by seedlings.
Then came the attempt to grow orch.
ards of grated fruit. But as all the
large nurseries were situated in localities
much milder than the mountain regions,
and especially the northern counties of
Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine,
and as nearly every popular apple of
southern New England and New York is
too tender tree for this northern climate,
the attempt to introduce them was gen.
orally an entire failure. This discour-
aged the planters, who were not com.
monty aware of the great difference, in
hardness of tree, between different va
rieties Of the same kind of fruit-apples,
pears, cherries and plums-and failure
led to the belief that the climate had
changed, and become colder on account of
the clearing up of the country.
When the more persevering experiment.
ers discovered that a few kinds, such as
Red Astrachan, Sops of Wine, Tolman
Sweet, and Fameuse did pretty well in
all but the very coolest spots, they began
to gather courage, and their attention was
awakened to the fact that varieties do
differ in their power of resisting the win.
ter's cold. When again still harder sorts,
such as the Russian Tetofsky, Duchess of
Oldenburg and Alexander, were tried, it
was discovered that apple-trees do exist
which thrive as we'll in northern New
England as Baldwins and Greetings do
in the southern part.
Still there was lack of hardy winter
sorts. All the first discovered "iron
clads were early fruit, and it was not
until Minnesota gave us the Wealthy
Undoubtedly Russian Seeding or
cross) that we began to feel that every