492 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



have nothing to do with laising ponltiy, and now experts tell me that 

 oui' poultry work, if not a faihl^{^ is at h^ast handicapped owing to 

 the fact that thiw accidental location is unfit for poultry and is cans 

 ing us to work against nature. 



The location of most family oicliards and some commercial ones is 

 equally accidental. How many orchards in Pennsylvania have been 

 located with r.'_^ference to the farm buildings. Few men have deliber 

 ately studied the soil and climatic adaption of different parts of their 

 farm, but they just planted an orchard where convenience, generally 

 in relation to the dwelling, has indicated. Some brilliant successes in 

 orcharding and many dismal failures have been due to the accident 

 of placing the right or wrong kind of variety of fruit on the right 

 or wrong soil, yet it is now known that in the same orchard part of 

 the land may be adapted to Baldwins, another part to Rhode Island 

 Greening and so on. The point is that if orcharding is to take a 

 large place in Pennsylvania, and I believe it is possible to put this 

 great Commonwealth at the head of the column, both in the yield 

 and quality of apples, at least, then a systematic campaign of educa- 

 tion must be begun by thi« Society and all other agencies designed to 

 better the fruit industry of the State, to teach people that commer- 

 cial orcharding should be restricted to those sections where, by 

 virtue of soil and climate, man is aided by nature in the production 

 of apples and other fruit. Not only so, but people should generally 

 recognize the necessity of adapting the kind of fruit, or even the 

 variety, to both soil and climate conditions. We must even go 

 farther and recognize that certain varieties require different treat- 

 ments. A friend suggests that in planting an orchard the following 

 plan be followed: 



12 12 1 



3 4 3 4 3 



12 12 1 



3 4 3 4 3 



12 12 1 



In the above outline each number represents a variety of apples. If 

 we suppose each tree was planted, say twenty feet apart, each way, 

 then, ten years later, when it was decided which one of the four 

 varieties was best, considering yield, quality and market conditions, 

 the other tree could be removed. It is evident that it would make 

 no difference which variety was left, as the trees of every variety 

 are exactly the same distance apart. iSTow^ my friend has pointed 

 out one objection to this method which he deems rather serious; 

 how serious I must leave it to the expert to decide. He says that 

 in his own experience different varieties of apples require different 

 strengths of sprays, and that if four varieties were thus interspread 

 one might find difficulty in getting the best results in spraying. I 

 bring this question up here only as an illustration of the possible 

 adaptation of varieties or kinds of fruit to methods of manage- 

 ment. 



"While the adaptation of present well-known varieties of fruit to 

 different climatic and soil conditions is the first and })robably the 

 most important subject in promoting fruit raising, yet it is possible 

 to go a step further. The Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment 



