308 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY, 



of varieties to particular localities or specific purposes, Tho}' had 

 no guide but their own fancy or the caprice of the dealer of whom 

 they bought. Where trees of the old standard sorts had failed for 

 the want of proper care, a remed}' had been sought in the introduc- 

 tion of some new kind of which marvelous accounts were given. 

 Another evil existing at that time was the confusion in regard to the 

 names of fruits. As the result of all this there were growing in the 

 State an innumerable list of varieties, known and unknown, and 

 many of them worthless or not adapted to the locality or the markets. 

 As a single illustration, there had been planted a great number of 

 trees under the indefinite name of ''golden russet," of most of which 

 the fruit was inferior in size and qualitj-. Many farmers had been 

 induced to plant large numbers of crab apple trees, under the belief 

 that there was in them some special source of profit. Men might 

 learn by their own failures, but the process was slow and expensive ; 

 and the}' seldom learned much from the experience of others. 



In no department of agricultural labor was there such misapplica- 

 tion of time and money, or such need of an organization to give 

 direction to individual effort and to develope the great possibilities 

 of our situation, as in that of fruit production. 



The efforts of the Society have been thus far largel}' devoted to the 

 elimination of worthless and unprofitable varieties of fruit and the 

 correction of errors in nomenclature, and at no period has more rapid 

 progress been made in this respect than during the last A^ear, At 

 the same time attention has been given to all the varied details of 

 the theor}- and practice of horticulture, so far as the means at hand 

 would allow, Mu(;h has been accomplished, but more remains to 

 be done. While the fundamental principles of fruit culture are the 

 same in all times and places, their adaptation to specific and profit- 

 able results is governed mainly by local conditions. All the forces 

 and instrumentalities of nature — the varying conditions of climate, 

 temperature, altitude, atmospheric humidity, rainfall, snow and frost, 

 the influences of animal and insect life, parasitic and fungoid growths, 

 as well as the facilities for transportation and competition in our 

 own and other markets, are to be weighed and considered. Hence 

 every considerable section of the countr}' needs a system of its own, 

 differing in some respects from an}' other. The extent and diversity' 

 of the territory of our own State calls for two distinct pomological 

 systems, neither of which will correspond with that of au}' other 

 section. To develop these systems and make them a part of the 



