HOW TO RAISE FRUITS. II3 



varied. Some had short and some long stems, some were fairly 

 well colored, others were not. The premium was given to the 

 plate of medium sized apples, because that was the nearest to 

 the type of the Baldwin. Some people when they take their 

 fruit from home think they have very fine fruit, but when they 

 get to the fair their fruit does not look half as well as it did 

 before they compared it with that of their neighbors. The 

 trouble is simply that they did not know what the true type of 

 that particular fruit was. The fair is to show us what that type 

 is, and it also should teach us that we should try to produce fruit 

 as near that particular type as we can. The fair teaches both the 

 consumer and the producer. If the consumer sees fine fruit 

 at the fair he will wonder wh^ he cannot get something like that 

 in the markets and will call for it. The old-styled way of grow- 

 ing fruit is past. We cannot put upon the market fruit that 

 used to be placed there a few years ago, and get a paying 

 price for it. The sale of mixed lots of fruit, poor and good, 

 is past. To get the most out of fruit we must send that which 

 would be fit to exhibit at our fairs because the market calls for 

 it. A great deal of fruit sold is of poor color; to get a good 

 apple it must be perfect in color. If it is a red apple, it should 

 be red, not two-thirds green or yellow. If it is a green apple, 

 like the Greening, it should be greenish in color, with a red cheek. 

 It should not be a sickly green. We cannot produce a high 

 colored apple if it is too much in the shade, and where two apples 

 meet those apples will not be well colored. To grow an apple 

 fit to exhibit we must see to it that it has light and sunshine, and 

 then we must see that the foliage of the tree is healthful. Then 

 we must know how to prevent disease and insects from affecting 

 the fruit and the plants. In the case of the apple, you cannot 

 take a wormy apple to a fair and win a premium; you cannot 

 take a decayed apple to a fair and win a premium, if the judge 

 does his work well. You must know how to prevent the worm 

 from getting into your fruit, and how to prevent the disease 

 from striking it. Then it must be put in perfect shape for exhi- 

 bition. One thing was noticeable at the exhibit at Auburn, a 

 great many of the apples had no stems. That is a small matter, 

 perhaps, but if you exhibit fruit where it is judged as it should 

 be, no matter how good the fruit is otherwise, if the stem is not 

 there it will be thrown one side, it will not take a premium. In 



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