PROGRESS OF HORTICULTURE IN INDIANA.[21]I aminduced 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 appleswere exhibited. We never expect to see finer. Our most popular winter apples are: Yellow Bellflower; White Bellflower (calledDetroitby the gentlemen of Cincinnati Horticultural Society—but for reasons which are not satisfactory to my mind. What has become of the White Bellflower ofCoxe, 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 moremanageablein 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 othersmiss, the Vandervere pippinhits; 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 afirst-ratetree, bearing asecond-rateapple. 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. TheBaldwinhas never come up toits 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 toseedlingorchards 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 thanthreewill 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 pearorchardsare 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 atten, and pears attwentycents; and in some nurseries, apples may be had atsixcents. 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, fortwenty-fivecents a bushel—and dull at that. This winter they commandthirty-sevencents. 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 theprofitoffruit. 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 thequantityconsumed 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, beforestedwith orchards. The fruit bears exportation kindly. Thus there will be asupply; 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 apermanentcrop, 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—afruit-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 ninetycounties 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 nearlytwo 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 awhitevariety. “What color is ablack-berry when it isgreen?” We used to sayred, but now we have ripeblack-berries which arewhite, andgreen black-berries which arered. 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 aseedlingwhich 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, driveout all old and ordinary varieties. The gardens of this town would afford aboutsixtyvarieties 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.
I aminduced 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 appleswere exhibited. We never expect to see finer. Our most popular winter apples are: Yellow Bellflower; White Bellflower (calledDetroitby the gentlemen of Cincinnati Horticultural Society—but for reasons which are not satisfactory to my mind. What has become of the White Bellflower ofCoxe, 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 moremanageablein 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 othersmiss, the Vandervere pippinhits; 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 afirst-ratetree, bearing asecond-rateapple. 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. TheBaldwinhas never come up toits 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 toseedlingorchards 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 thanthreewill 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 pearorchardsare 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 atten, and pears attwentycents; and in some nurseries, apples may be had atsixcents. 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, fortwenty-fivecents a bushel—and dull at that. This winter they commandthirty-sevencents. 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 theprofitoffruit. 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 thequantityconsumed 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, beforestedwith orchards. The fruit bears exportation kindly. Thus there will be asupply; 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 apermanentcrop, 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—afruit-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 ninetycounties 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 nearlytwo 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 awhitevariety. “What color is ablack-berry when it isgreen?” We used to sayred, but now we have ripeblack-berries which arewhite, andgreen black-berries which arered. 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 aseedlingwhich 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, driveout all old and ordinary varieties. The gardens of this town would afford aboutsixtyvarieties 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.