1358 Department of Agriculture 



labor, storage, competition, disposition of by-products, cost of 

 production and overproduction demand much attention. Any of 

 tliese may prove a determinant of success. " The weakest goes to 

 the wall " applies in growing fruit as well as in other business 

 enterprises. In home orchards these economic factors may be 

 ignored. There are, however, certain natural factors which must 

 be observed in fruit growing for both home and 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. One must select fruits, 

 and even more particularly varieties, with reference to latitude 

 and its equivalent, altitude. It is easy enough to select fruits for 

 a region in a certain altitude or latitude but it is far from easy 

 to choose the varieties of a particular fruit. Thus the Ben Davis, 

 winesap, romanite and York imperial apples belong in southern 

 latitudes. The Concord grape and its seventy or more 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 bomids of latitude may be 

 set aside' by such local modifications as hills, valleys, bodies of 

 water, winds and sunshine. Fortunate is the man who has his 

 orchards planted only with sorts suited to his latitude. Climate 

 is the fruit grower's greatest asset and costs him nothing. 



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

 a location for a fruit plantation and in choosing land all the 

 characters, as physical structure, richness, power to retain moisture 

 and depth must be well considered. 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 an orchard should know that each individual variety of 

 any fruit will do better in some soils than in others. 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 ta 

 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 thrive in cooler lands, but in general a cold, heavy, 

 close soil is poor for any fruit. 



