ISTew Yoke: Agricultural Experiment Station. 473 



thrive in cooler lands, but, in general, a cold, heavy, close soil is 

 a poor one for any of the fruits. 



SELECTION OF VARIETIES. 



With the location and land selected the next question is, What 

 varieties shall I plant? This question we have touched upon in 

 part in previous paragraphs and it only remains here to be said 

 that out of the thousands of varieties of the several fruits even the 

 few best ones may be most readily characterized by their faults — 

 showing how necessary it is to make careful choice of varieties. 

 An intimate first-hand knowledge of varieties in his own locality is 

 the only way by which a man can become competent to choose the 

 sorts to plant. Careful consideration will in most cases lead the 

 planter to choose standard varieties. 



selecting trees. 

 It is about as difficult to select the trees of the several fruits as 

 it is to make a choice of varieties. It is not of prime importance 

 but it is true, and, therefore, worth consideration, that trees grown 

 near home are somewhat better than those brought from a dis- 

 tance. Every precaution should be taken in buying to insure 

 trees true to name and free from pests. There is scarcely a fruit- 

 grower the country over, big or little, who has not suffered at the 

 hands of some unscrupulous tree-dealer through substitution of 

 varieties, through the introduction of some pest, or through buying 

 dead or worthless trees. Other things being equal, a short, stocky 

 tree is better than a tall, spindling one; one with many branches, 

 better than one with few.; and always the root system should be 

 well developed. 



" PEDIGREED " trees. 



The idea is current that fruits can be improved by bud-selection. 

 It is held that the variations in fruit, tree, productiveness, vigor and 

 hardiness to be found in varieties of fruit, can be reproduced by 

 taking cions or buds from the plants possessing the variations. 

 A number of nurserymen are putting this theory in practice and 

 trees are now offered for sale with a " pedigree " to show that they 

 came from known, good ancestry. But there is no evidence that 

 any sort of fruits has come into existence by continuous selection; 

 that any variety has been improved, or that any variety has de- 

 generated through the cumulative action of natural or artificial 

 selection. No precise experimental evidence has been offered to 

 prove that varieties of fruit can be changed in the least by con- 

 tinuous bud-selection. Fruit-growers should steer clear of " pedi- 

 greed stock " and " improved strains " of varieties until the new 

 production can be seen somewhere by competent judges growing 

 side by side with the parents. 



