472 Report of the Department of Horticulture of the 



location of the orchard. 



Whatever the kind of fruit-growing, the choice of location demands 

 exceedingly careful study. All subsequent efforts will fail if a mis- 

 take is made in selecting the site for operations. In growing fruit 

 for the market certain economic considerations demand attention; 

 as distance to market, means of transportation, labor, storage, 

 competition, disposition of by-products, cost of production, and 

 over-production. Any of these may prove a determinant of success 

 and each should receive careful consideration. " The weakest goes 

 to the wall " applies in the business of growing fruit as well as in 

 other business enterprises. In growing fruit for home use, these 

 economic factors may be ignored. There are, however, certain 

 natural factors which must be observed in growing fruit for either 

 home or market. 



The first of these is latitude, which largely determines the annual 

 temperature, the amount and intensity of sunlight, and the length 

 of the growing season. A man must select fruits, and even more 

 particularly varieties, with reference to latitude and its equivalent, 

 altitude. It is easy enough to select the fruit or fruits for a region 

 in a certain altitude or latitude but it is far from easy to select the 

 varieties of a particular fruit. Thus, the Ben Davis, Winesap, 

 Romanite and York Imperial groups of apples belong in southern 

 latitudes, while the Concord grape and its seventy or more named 

 offspring belong to the North. So with nearly all varieties of our 

 fruits; they are either northerners or southerners and should be 

 kept where they belong. Still the metes and bounds of latitude 

 may be set aside by such local modifications as hills, valleys, bodies 

 of water, direction of winds and distribution of sunshine. 



SOIL. 



As with all crops, the soil must largely determine the value of 

 a location for a fruit plantation and in choosing land all of the char- 

 acters, as physical structure, richness, power to retain moisture, and 

 depth must be well considered. As everyone knows, special fruits 

 have special soil adaptations; the peach grows on sand; the plum 

 on clay; apples and pears on loams. But the knowledge that the 

 several fruits have adaptations to soils is far from sufficient. A man 

 planting fruit should know that each individual variety of any 

 fruit will do better in some soils than in others. The fruit-grower 

 must discover what these preferences are. The chemist and the 

 soil physicist can help but little here; in most cases an actual test 

 in the field is the only way of knowing whether a variety will or 

 will not thrive in a soil. One property of the soil is too often 

 neglected; namely, its heat-retaining properties. Some fruits, as 

 the peach and the grape, require warm soils; apples and pears will 



