SPECIFICATIONS FOR SUCCESSFUL FRUIT-GROWING 



Professor U. P. Hedrick 

 Horticulturist, New York Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva. 



THE SITE 



All subsequent efforts fail if a mistake is made in selecting 

 the site for operations. In growing fruit for the market certain 

 economic considerations imperatively demand attention ; as dis- 

 tance to market, means of transportation, labor, storage, compe- 

 tition, disposition of bj-products, cost of production, and over- 

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

 " The weakest goes to the wall " applies in the business of grow- 

 ing fruit as well as in other business enterprises. In growing- 

 fruit for home use, these economic factors may be ignored. There 

 are natural factors, however, which must be observed in growing 

 fruit for either home or market. 



The first of these is latitude. 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 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, 

 \Yinesap, Eomanite 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 all va- 

 rieties of our fruits; they are either northerners or southerners 

 and should be grown 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 distribu- 

 tion of sunshine. 



SOILS 



The soil largely determines the value of a location for a fruit 

 plantation. Special fruits have special soil adaptations : The peach 

 grows on sand; the plum on clay; apples and pears on loams. 

 Individual varieties of any fruit also do better in some soils than 

 in others. The fruit-grower must discover what these preferences 



[1713] 



