WHAT VARIETIES OF APPLE TREES TO PLANT. 5I 



The past two or three years a great many Stark have been 

 set. The tree is a good grower, better than the Ben Davis, and 

 the fruit is quite as attractive. It is a httle better in quality 

 also, but is not quite up to our best market apples. 



The nursery people all the time are offering more or less new 

 varieties with the hope of selling more trees. One of these 

 that is being put upon the market at the present time is the 

 Spencer Seedless apple and of this a few words may not be 

 out of place. In a recent article written by Prof. S. W. Fletcher 

 of the Michigan Agricultural College for the Rural New Yorker, 

 he says he visited Mr. Spencer's home in Colorado. Mr. Spen- 

 cer was not at home, but he found the hired man out in the 

 stable sorting over some 25 bushels of Seedless apples. This 

 fruit is of medium size, flattened and often one-sided. In the 

 sun the fruit is dull red nearly over the entire surface, marked 

 with many large whitish dots ; in the shade it is the color of an 

 Eastern Seek-No-Further. The color is good, but not nearly 

 as bright as the color of the Jonathan, Gano and Winesap grown 

 in the same locality. 



In 25 or 30 apples cut open for examination over half of them 

 contained from one to five shrunken seeds. Fully three-fourths 

 of them had well-developed cores, with tough partitions like 

 other apples. A large percentage of the apples were wormy, 

 although the trees had been sprayed, and the hired man even 

 admitted that it was more likely to be wormy than other vari- 

 eties growing nearby. It is claimed that trees of this variety 

 growing near others will have more or less seeds, as these 

 examined certainly did have. On the other hand, if they are 

 planted by themselves it is the claim of the grower that the fruit 

 will be se.edless, or nearlv so. 



In conclusion Prof. Fletcher says that so far as the tree is 

 concerned it is all right, but that "the fruit itself does not pos- 

 sess the essential points of a profitable market variety." I am 

 calling attention to this variety for the reason that agents are 

 selling it in the State as a most desirable commercial apple for 

 our people to grow. 



Williams Favorite is an apple that is popular in the Boston 

 market. It is an early variety, but one of our fruit growers 

 sold his 1906 crop in that market at the rate of $1.2^ to $2.25 



