STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 39 



production per year for a series of years. For instance, if the 

 trees are set thirty-five feet apart, or two rods apart is about 

 what we set them, he would get forty trees to the acre. If he 

 has been gathering one hundred and twenty barrels from that 

 acre, he would naturally infer that his trees were producing 

 three barrels to the tree; any falling short of that he would 

 realize that he was getting less than the normal; if it went 

 beyond that, he would feel that he was getting above the normal. 

 Whether we can educate the people so that they will be able to 

 estimate in quantitative terms, I do not know. Sometimes 1 

 have thought that would be a better way. At other times, I 

 have felt that it would be almost an absolute impossibility to get 

 people to figure their apples in terms of barrels or bushels. 

 They simply go out and look and they say that there were more 

 apples last year than this. I have sometimes thought the way 

 we could get at it would be to compare each year's crop — this 

 year's crop with the past. I do not know whether that will work 

 out. I have put in quite a good bit of thought along those lines, 

 and I am just as far from arriving at a definite conclusion now 

 as when I first began to think it over. 



Mr. Sanders: The question of methods that might be suc- 

 cessful with regard to the apple crop is a very old one. The 

 Bureau has been wrestling with this problem for years and years 

 and have tried out most every method that has been proposed ; 

 they have found out by these years of experience that some sort 

 of a full crop, or a crop, is the most practicable standard to have 

 in mind ; that is, it comes nearest in the course of years to getting 

 the information that they need. Now it was suggested at the 

 conference that was held here last year, and urged by some, that 

 last year's crop might be taken as the standard. Well, that has 

 been tested out by the Bureau, and I tested it out myself this 

 year, and was amazed at the sort of returns that came in, asking 

 men to compare the crop this year with last year. In cases 

 where I knew absolutely that there was fully three times the 

 crop of last year, practically nobody got even double last 

 year. So that a percentage basis, using last year's crop as a 

 standard, presents serious difficulties, because few people can 

 get very far away from this idea of a safe normal. Are there 

 any other discussions on this point? Mr. Conant, what do you 

 say about it ? 



