I am induced to send you some remarks upon Horticultural matters, from
observing your disposition to make your magazine not merely a record
of specific processes, and a register of plants and fruits, but also a
chronicle of the yearly progress and condition of the Horticultural
art. I should be glad if I could in any degree thus repay the pleasure
which others have given me through your numbers, by reciprocal
efforts.
The Indiana Horticultural State fair is held annually, on the 4th and
5th of October. Experience has shown that it should be earlier; for,
although a better assortment of late fruits, in which, hitherto, we
have chiefly excelled, is secured, it is at the expense of small
fruits and flowers. The floral exhibition was meagre—the frost having
already visited and despoiled our gardens. The chief attraction, as,
in an agricultural community, it must long continue to be, was the
exhibition of fruit. My recollection of New England fruits, after an
absence of more than ten years, is not distinct; but my impression is,
that so fine a collection of fruits could scarcely be shown there. The
luxuriance of the peach, the plum, the pear and the apple, is such, in
this region, as to afford the most perfect possible specimens. The
vigor of fruit-trees, in such a soil and under a heaven so congenial,
produces fruits which are very large without being coarse-fleshed; the
flavor concentrated, and the color very high. It is the constant
remark of emigrants from the East, that our apples surpass those to
which they have been accustomed. Many fruits which I remember in
Connecticut as light-colored, appear with us almost refulgent. All
summer and early fall apples were gone before our exhibition; but
between seventy and a hundred varieties of winter apples were
exhibited. We never expect to see finer. Our most popular winter
apples are: Yellow Bellflower; White Bellflower (called _Detroit_ by
the gentlemen of Cincinnati Horticultural Society—but for reasons
which are not satisfactory to my mind. What has become of the White
Bellflower of _Coxe_, if this is not it?) Newtown Spitzenberg,
exceedingly fine with us; Canfield, Jennetting or Neverfail, escaping
spring frosts by late blossoming, very hardy, a great bearer every
year; the fruit comes into eating in February, is tender, juicy, mild
and sprightly, and preferred with us to the Green Newtown
pippin—keeping full as well, bearing better, the pulp much more
_manageable_ in the mouth, and the apple has the peculiar property of
bearing frosts, and even freezing, without material injury; Green
Newtown pippin; Michael Henry pippin (very fine); Pryor’s Red, in
flavor resembling the New England Seek-no-further; Golden Russet, the
prince of small apples, and resembling a fine butter-pear more nearly
than any apple in our orchards—an enormous bearer; some limbs
exhibited were clustered with fruit, more like bunches of grapes than
apples; Milam, favorite early winter; Rambo, the same. But the apple
most universally cultivated is the Vandervere pippin, only a second or
third-rate table apple, but having other qualities which quite ravish
the hearts of our farmers. The tree is remarkably vigorous and
healthy; it almost never fails in a crop; when all others _miss_, the
Vandervere pippin _hits_; the fruit, which is very large and comely,
is a late winter fruit—yet swells so quickly as to be the first and
best summer cooking apple. If its flesh (which is coarse) were fine,
and its (too sharp) flavor equalled that of the Golden Russet, it
would stand without a rival, or near neighbor, at the very head of the
list of winter apples. As it is, it is a _first-rate_ tree, bearing a
_second-rate_ apple. A hybrid between it and the Golden Russet, or
Newtown Spitzenberg, appropriating the virtues of both, would leave
little more to be hoped for or wished. The _Baldwin_ has never come up
to its eastern reputation with us; the Rhode Island Greening is eaten
for the sake of “auld lang syne;” the Roxbury russet is not yet in
bearing—instead of it several false varieties have been presented at
our exhibitions. All the classic apples of your orchards are planted
here, but are yet on probation.
Nothing can exhibit better the folly of trusting to _seedling_
orchards for fruit, for a main supply, than our experience in this
matter. The early settlers could not bring trees from Kentucky,
Virginia or Pennsylvania—and, as the next resort, brought and planted
seeds of popular apples. A later population found no nurseries to
supply the awakening demand for fruit-trees, and resorted also to
planting seed. That which, at first, sprang from necessity, has been
continued from habit, and from an erroneous opinion that seedling
fruit was better than grafted. An immense number of seedling trees are
found in our State. Since the Indiana Horticultural Society began to
collect specimens of these, more than one hundred and fifty varieties
have been sent up for inspection. Our rule is to reject every apple
which, the habits of the tree and the quality of its fruit being
considered, has a superior or equal already in cultivation. Of all the
number presented, not six have vindicated their claims to a name or a
place—and not more than _three_ will probably be known ten years
hence. While, then, we encourage cultivators to raise seedlings
experimentally, it is the clearest folly to reject the established
varieties and trust to inferior seedling orchards. From facts which I
have collected there has been planted, during the past year, in this
State, at least one hundred thousand apple-trees. Every year the
demand increases. It is supposed that the next year will surpass this
by at least twenty-five thousand.
In connection with apple orchards, our farmers are increasingly
zealous in pear cultivation. We are fortunate in having secured to our
nurseries not only the most approved old varieties, but the choicest
new pears of British, Continental or American origin. A few years ago
to each one hundred apple-trees, our nurseries sold, perhaps, two
pear-trees; now they sell at least twenty to a hundred. Very large
pear _orchards_ are established, and in some instances are now
beginning to bear. I purchased Williams’s Bon Chrétien in our market
last fall for seventy-five cents the bushel. This pear, with the St.
Michael’s, Beurré Diel, Beurré d’Aremberg, Passe Colmar, Duchess
d’Angoulême, Seckel, and Marie Louise, are the most widely diffused,
and all of them regularly at our exhibitions. Every year enables us to
test other varieties. The Passe Colmar and Beurré d’Aremberg have done
exceedingly well—a branch of the latter, about eighteen inches in
length, was exhibited at our Fair, bearing over twenty pears, none of
which were smaller than a turkey’s egg. The demand for pear-trees,
this year, has been such that our nurseries have not been able to
answer it—and they are swept almost entirely clean. I may as well
mention here that, beside many more neighborhood nurseries, there are
in this State eighteen which are large and skillfully conducted.
The extraordinary cheapness of trees favors their general cultivation.
Apple-trees, not under ten feet high, and finely grown, sell at _ten_,
and pears at _twenty_ cents; and in some nurseries, apples may be had
at _six_ cents. This price, it should be recollected, is in a
community where corn brings from twelve to twenty cents only, a
bushel; wheat sells from forty-five to fifty; hay at five dollars the
ton. During the season of 1843-’44, apples of the finest sorts
(Jennetting, green Newtown pippin, etc.), sold at my door, as late as
April, for _twenty-five_ cents a bushel—and dull at that. This winter
they command _thirty-seven_ cents. Attention is increasingly turned to
the cultivation of apples for exportation. Our inland orchards will
soon find an outlet, both to the Ohio River by railroad, and the Lakes
by canal. The effects of such a deluge of fruit is worthy of some
speculation. It will diminish the price but increase the _profit_ of
fruit. An analogous case is seen in the penny-postage system of
England. Fruit will become more generally and largely an article, not
of luxury, but of daily and ordinary diet. It will find its way down
to the poorest table—and the _quantity_ consumed will make up in
profit to the dealer, what is lost in lessening its price. A few years
and the apple crop will be a matter of reckoning by farmers and
speculators, just as is now, the potato crop, the wheat crop, the
pork, etc. Nor will it create a home market alone. By care it may be
exported with such facility, that the world will receive it as a part
of its diet. It will, in this respect, follow the history of grains
and edible roots, and from a local and limited use, the apple and the
pear will become articles of universal demand. The reasons of such an
opinion are few and simple. It is a fruit always palatable—and as
such, will be welcome to mankind whatever their tastes, if it can be
brought within their reach. The western States will, before many
years, be _forested_ with orchards. The fruit bears exportation
kindly. Thus there will be a _supply_; a possibility of distributing
it by commerce, to meet a taste already existing. These views may seem
fanciful—may prove so; but they are analogical. Nor, if I inherit my
three score years and ten, do I expect to die, until the apple crop of
the United States shall surpass the potato crop in value, both for man
and beast. It has the double quality of palatableness, raw or
cooked—it is a _permanent_ crop, not requiring annual planting—and it
produces more bushels to the acre than corn, wheat, or, on an average,
than potatoes. The calculations may be made, allowing an average of
fifteen bushels to a tree. The same reasoning is true of the pear; it
and the apple, are to hold a place yet, as universal eatables—a
_fruit-grain_, not known in their past history. If not another tree
should be set in this county (Marion County), in ten years the annual
crop of apples will be 200,000 bushels. But Wayne County has double
our number of trees; suppose, however, the ninety counties of Indiana
to have only 25 trees to a quarter section of land, _i. e._ to each
160 acres, the crop, of fifteen bushels a tree, would be nearly _two
millions_.
The past year has greatly increased the cultivation of small fruits in
the State. Strawberries are found in almost every garden, and of
select sorts. None among them all is more popular—or more deservedly
so—than Hovey’s Seedling. We have a native white strawberry, removed
from our meadows to our gardens, which produces fruit of superior
fragrance and flavor. The crop is not large—but continues gradually
ripening for many weeks. The blackberry is introduced to the garden
among us. The fruit sells at our market for from three to five
cents—profit is not therefore the motive for cultivating it, but
improvement. I have a _white_ variety. “What color is a _black_-berry
when it is _green_?” We used to say _red_, but now we have ripe
_black_-berries which are _white_, and _green black_-berries which are
_red_. Assorted gooseberries and the new raspberries, Franconia and
Fastolff are finding their way into our gardens. The Antwerps we have
long had in abundance. If next spring I can produce rhubarb weighing
two pounds to the stalk, shall I have surpassed you? I have a
_seedling_ which last year, without good cultivation, produced
petioles weighing from eighteen to twenty ounces. My wrist is not very
delicate, and yet it is much smaller in girth than they were.
In no department is there more decided advance among our citizens than
in floriculture. In all our rising towns, yards and gardens are to be
found choicely stocked. All hardy bulbs are now sought after.
Ornamental shrubs are taken from our forests, or imported from abroad,
in great variety. Altheas, rose acacia, jasmin, calycanthus,
snowberry, snowball, sumach, syringas, spicewood, shepherdia, dogwood,
redwood, and other hardy shrubs abound. The rose is an especial
favorite. The Bengal, Tea and Noisettes bear our winters in the open
garden with but slight protection. The Bourbon and Remontantes will,
however, drive out all old and ordinary varieties. The gardens of this
town would afford about _sixty_ varieties of roses, which would be
reckoned first rate in Boston or Philadelphia.
While New England suffered under a season of drought, on this side of
the mountains the season was uncommonly fine—scarcely a week elapsed
without copious showers, and gardens remained moist the whole season.
Fruits ripened from two to three weeks earlier than usual. In
consequence of this, winter fruits are rapidly decaying. To-day is
Christmas, the weather is spring-like—no snow—the thermometer this
morning, forty degrees. My Noisettes retain their terminal leaves
green; and in the southward-looking dells of the woods, grasses and
herbs are yet of a vivid green. Birds are still here—three this
morning were singing on the trees in my yard. There are some curious
facts in the early history of horticulture in this region, which I
meant to have included in this communication; but insensibly I have,
already, prolonged it beyond, I fear, a convenient space for your
magazine. I yield it to you for cutting, carving, suppressing, or
whatever other operation will fit it for your purpose.
[21] A letter published in Hovey’s Magazine of Horticulture,
February, 1845.