SUGGESTIONS TO FRUIT GROWERS. 53 



SUGGESTIONS TO FRUIT GROWERS. 

 By C. D. Smith, Director Michigan Experiment Station. 



Maine strikes an observer from Michigan as an exceptionally 

 good state for apple growing. In the first place you have such 

 splendid sites. Maine farms are so beautiful that they are 

 turned up on edge that people can see them better. The upper 

 edge, when not bare rock, is just the place for an apple orchard. 



Remember that Michigan orchards are threatened with at 

 least one deadly enemy, the San Jose scale. I am sure that the 

 most of the area of Maine is north of the danger line of this 

 dire evil. All over the western part of Michigan are orchards 

 which are neglected, or torn up by the roots because the San 

 Jose scale has secured a foothold too well settled to be dislodged. 

 You are relatively, if not absolutely, free from this danger. It 

 seems to me certain that Michigan is going to produce less 

 apples, very notably less apples in the future than she has in 

 the past. It is going to be a hard struggle to grow apples in 

 other states of the same latitude. Again, while I have seen 

 immense orchards set out in Missouri and Arkansas. I can 

 assure you that for the most part the varieties are such as not 

 to compete with your products. The attempt is now made to 

 get the apples into Chicago in May or June and the Southerners 

 are planting trees with this in view. The market for such fruit 

 as Maine can produce is going to grow better and better as our 

 cities increase in population. 



As to the matter of varieties, I have no sugq'estion to make 

 farther than to urge you to secure the bulletins of your Experi- 

 ment Station which are sent free to every one who writes to 

 Director C. D. Woods, Orono, Maine, asking for them. 



The soil might better be a clay than a light sand. 



In selecting trees, if sufficient time is allowed, it certainly 

 would pay to have young trees grown from root grafts made 

 with cions selected by yourself from bearing limbs of fruitful 

 trees having the fruit that just suits your demand. This is 

 better than buying average nursery stock in the root grafting of 

 which not enough care is spent in the selection of the cions. 



