412 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



poulti'3^ wauts to know whether the mother will lay two hundred 

 eggs in a year and what proportion of her eggs, if hatched, will pro- 

 duce roosters. But not one nurseryman or fruit grower in a hundred 

 gives the question of parentage any thought. The orchardist is fully 

 satisfied if he gets good strong trees of the varieties wanted. If he 

 orders Baldwins and Baldwins come, they are planted and he waits 

 years for uncertain results. Every observing fruit grower has no- 

 ticed that no two trees of a given variety growing under exactly the 

 same conditions are ever alike. They may have been of equal size 

 when planted, placed side by side in soil of the some properties, cul- 

 tivated and treated in all respects just alike, but if their character is 

 studied and their history reviewed when they are twenty-five years 

 old, many differences will be discovered. The trees are different in 

 habit of growth; some have fruited quite uniformly every year, while 

 others have borne erevj other year or less frequently. Some have 

 yielded larger fruits and more of them than others. Now, if a or- 

 chard were to be propagated from such an old plantation would it be 

 judicious to cut scions promiscuously from all the trees without 

 reference to their habits of growth or fruiting qualities? This ques- 

 tion must be answ^ered in the negative for it is a well established fact 

 with plants as well as with animals that ''like tends to produce like." 

 If we want the most profitable orchard we should propagate from 

 robust trees which have yielded the largest and the greatest number 

 of crops of the finest fruit. 



Most nurserymen do not pay any attention to the individuality 

 of the stock they multiply. Unless our nurserymen, therefore, 

 change their methods and propagate and sell pedigree trees, the 

 practical fruit grower must propagate his own trees or top work 

 nursery trees in order to secure satisfactory results. Perhaps the 

 be«t plan is to procure trees of a healthy vigorous grower like North- 

 ern Spy and top graft after they have been transplanted one year, 

 with scions from trees or stock of known value. 



There is a difference of opinion regarding the best season to plant 

 the orchard. Some believe that it is better to plant all kinds of fruit 

 trees in the spring, but for hardy fruits, as the pear, apple and plum, 

 fall setting has several advantages. Trees transplanted in the fall 

 become firmly established by spring and consequently growth begins 

 earlier, and this earlier and more vigorous growth enables the trees 

 to withstand summer drouths better than those set in the spring. 

 When fall planting is practiced, precaution should be taken that 

 the wood of the trees is properly ripened. Some nurserymen strip 

 the leaves before the annual growth is complete and the trees are 

 then placed on the market early in the fall. This denuding of foliage 

 weakens the trees and doubtless causes the loss of man3^ Another 

 advantage of fall planting is that the orchardist is not usually so 



