92 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



was another. So the investigator, equipped with a bicycle, a 

 soil auger and note-book, sallied forth. You see him here tak- 

 ing a sample of the soil. 



This chart shows you the type of information that was sought 

 — a regular form you see, giving the name of the proprietor, 

 whether owner or renter, the man who managed the place, the 

 kind of site, the topography, that is to say the way in which it 

 slopes, the kind of drainage, variety, how cared for, the prun- 

 ing, fertilizer used, present treatment, whether sprayed or 

 unsprayed, the troubles, the difficulties, the enemies, and then 

 the interesting part — the returns. We were not always 

 able to get these tables filled out as completely as in this 

 case, but inasmuch as individual returns were not published you 

 see it was often not difficult if the farmer kept books, and most 

 good farmers keep books. Then the inspector made his own 

 remarks at the bottom, largely with reference to the orchard 

 itself. 



Here we have the agent interviewing the farm owner, the 

 orchard owner as it happens to be, just at the harvest time. 

 That is a good time to do this work because you can see the 

 product, and you are always likely to catch the owner or man- 

 ager in the orchard. The entire county was not surveyed 

 closely but we were able by getting accurate data on one part 

 to draw our deductions for the whole, although the principal 

 apple orchards in the whole county were carefully examined. 



Planting began about 1840 and continued till 1900. Those 

 trees which were planted between 1855 and 1859 gave the 

 largest yield over an average of four years, or a yield of 200 

 bushels per acre. These figures point to this important fact, 

 and a fact which I think will apply to your conditions here, that 

 under normal conditions the apple is a long-lived tree, and that 

 w^e should plant sufficiently far apart and care for it in such a 

 suitable way that our tree may be long-lived. In other words 

 we are going into a long investment. It is a principle that 

 is applicable all over the New England States. 



DISTANCE APART AS AFFECTING YIELD. 

 This slide shows the influence of the distance apart on yield. 

 As the distance between the trees increases so does the yield 

 increase. The fewer trees, in other w^ords, on the acre, the 



