No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AG-RICULTURE, 493 



Station is about to plant a large orchard on Hagerstown claj loam. 

 It wishes to grow three varieties of apples. Who can tell us what 

 three varieties to grow? Since this soil type is seldom used for com- 

 mercial orcharding, we ha^e little knowledge of the varieties adapted 

 to it. It is entirely possible that there is no well known variety of 

 apple adapted (o this soil type, at least when raised upon a commer- 

 cial scale, but it is possible that some variety may be found which 

 would outrival any known variety, or it may be that it would be 

 possible to create a variety better than any yet known for this pur- 

 pose. This illustration lias been given to show that there lies be- 

 fore our door great opportunities to discover or create varieties 

 adapted to special soils and climates. The people of this country 

 have been in the past few years, made quite familiar with the work 

 of Luther Burbank. It does not detract one iota from that work to 

 call attention to the fact that Burbank's creations, so-called, are of 

 little value usually to the horticulturist* of the East, because of 

 differences in soil and climate. The verv fundamental laws that 

 permit him to do what he does in large measure prevents his work 

 from being of practical value to eastern horticulturists. What he 

 has done is to call attention to what it is possible to do for each 

 locality, and then each locality must work out the problem for itself. 

 While the creation of new varieties of fruit may be dealt with in 

 some measure by the experiment stations, it is a line of work pe- 

 culiarly adapted to individual effort and one that this society can 

 wisely promote as such. 



While I hesitate to make suggestion as to practical details to the 

 members of this society, there grows, out of the idea that certain 

 varieties have certain soil and climatic adaption, the need of greater 

 care in the selection of stock. The time has come, in my opinion, 

 when no apple grower should buy a variety of apph^ for planting, but 

 the orchard should be planted from some suited stock such, say, as 

 Northern Spy, and afterwards top grafted from carefully selected 

 scions, preferably from trees grown under the same soil and climatic 

 conditions. Not the leasSt of the arguments in favor of this practice 

 is the positive knowledge that when the trees come into bearing 

 they will bear variety of apples expected. 



There is still another step in the study of horticultural adaptation. 

 If certain soils are adapted to the raising of certain varieties of fruit 

 or to a particularly high yield or quality of a particular variety of 

 fruit, then there must exist certain conditions in that soil which 

 brought about the restilts. Granting this, we have only to discover 

 these conditions and bring about the same conditions in other soils 

 in the same climate to get the same yield or quality. This may sound 

 simple to the uninitiated, but every person who has ever turned a 

 furrow knows it is not. 



A year ago last December, at the suggestion of two horticultural 

 societies of this State and upon the recommendation of the Director- 

 elect of the Station, the Board of Truste(\s of the Pennsylvania State 

 College set aside |1,800 of the Adams fund for the fiscal year ending 

 June 30, 1907, and later set aside .f2.700 for the fiscal year ending 

 June 30, 1908, for investigations in horticulture. At the annual 

 meeting of the State Horticultural Society last January the speaker 



