This is the art of successfully changing fruits or plants from one
climate to another. Removal to a colder climate should be effected in
the spring, and to a warmer one in the fall. This may be done by scions
or seeds. By seeds is better, in all cases in which they will produce
the same varieties. Very few imported apple or pear trees are valuable
in this country; while our finest varieties, perfectly adapted to our
climate, were raised from seeds of foreign fruits and their descendants.
The same is true of the extremes of this country. Baldwin apple-trees,
forty or fifty years old, are perfectly hardy in the colder parts of New
England; while the same imported from warmer sections of the Union fail
in severe winters. This fact has given many new localities the
reputation of being poor fruit-regions. When we remove fruit-trees to a
similar climate in a new country, they flourish well, and we call it a
good fruit-country. Remove trees from the same nursery to a different
climate and soil, and they are not hardy and vigorous, and we call it a
poor fruit-country. These two localities may be equally good for fruit,
with suitable care in acclimating the tree and preparing the soil. Thus
the rich prairies of central Illinois are often said not to be adapted
to fruit. Give time to raise fruits from the seed, and to apply the
principles of acclimation, and those rich prairies will be among the
great fruit-growing regions of the world. Two things are essential to
successful fruit-culture, on all the alluvial soils of the Northwest:
raise from seed, and prune closely and head-in short, and thus put back
and strengthen the trees for the first ten years, and no more complaints
will be heard.
The peach has been gradually acclimated, until, transplanted from
perpetual summer, it successfully endures a temperature of thirty-five
degrees below zero. This prince of fruits will yet be successfully grown
even beyond the northern limits of Minnesota. Many vegetables may also
be grown in very different climates, by annually importing the seed from
localities where they naturally flourish. Sweet potatoes are thus grown
abundantly in Massachusetts. We wonder this subject has received so
little attention. We commend these brief hints to the earnest
consideration of all practical cultivators, hoping they may be of great
value in the results to which they may lead.