STATE POMOLOGICAI, SOCIETY. 75 



Again, they claim in the Bitter Root Valley of Montana, that 

 they can "beat the world" in growing the Mcintosh. As a 

 result of its merits under the conditions in this valley, the Mc- 

 intosh is more largely planted in some portions of the valley, 

 than any other sort. Another case of merely finding out a 

 variety that was particularly well adapted to the condition and 

 then being business-like enough to plant it as a leading sort. 



Now, as I think of it, what important and widely known 

 variety is distinctively a Maine apple? What variety, when 

 mentioned by name, instantly calls forth the remark, "Yes, 

 that's the apple they grow up in Maine." Or what section in 

 this State has been made famous as the Hood River Valley has 

 been made famous by its specialty — the growing of a variety, 

 or at most a few varieties of apples, because of their superior 

 merit in that particular section? The fault may be mine, if I 

 view these Cjueries in a negative way. Yet I submit the ques- 

 .tion : Has the variety problem as the apple growers in this State 

 have to face it, been studied very much from the standpoint of 

 the exceptional adaptation of varieties to particular sections 

 of the State? 



Of course, it does not necessarily follow that such marked 

 cases of special adaptation of particular varieties as occur in the 

 Hood River Valley and the Bitter Root Valley would be par- 

 alleled in Maine. Yet high hills and valleys, upland meadows 

 and river bottoms, seashore and lake influences, and soil types 

 of wide diversity all occur and each with its own little domain 

 of local climatic and other factors of influence ; and as the 

 northern part of the State is approached, low winter tempera- 

 tures become still more a complicating factor. There is no 

 lack in the diversity of conditions prevailing within the borders 

 of the State and under which apples are grown. And it would 

 be strange indeed if there are not well defined cases of varietal 

 adaptability of great practical value within the reach of Maine 

 apple growers. 



It may take close observation and require some reshaping of 

 our mode of thought to correctly interpret the things which 

 Have been before our eyes so frequently that their significance 

 is unseen. But I'll venture to guess that there are many or- 

 chards belonging to you growers here in which the Baldwin, 



