No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 231 



Affairs were in this condition, when somewhat over three years 

 ac^o the experiments now in progress were undertaken by your Ex- 

 j.eriment Station at the request of your leading horticultural in- 

 terests. Already some marked results have been secured, which 

 enable us to see a little farther into the problem, and to account 

 for some of the earlier unfavorable returns. In the meantime, 

 favorable results from a long-time experiment in Massachusetts 

 have appeared to which attention is given later. 



THE PENNSYLVANIA EXPERIMENTS 



With the scope and general character of our experiments, you are 

 already acquainted. But I would recall the facts that we have 

 under experiment in various parts of the State ninety-one acres of 

 orchard, forty-nine of which (including 2,219 trees) are in partial 

 or full bearing. The yields from these experimental orchards in 

 1908 were somewhat over 164,000 pounds of fruit, and in 1909, the 

 third year, they were 256,000 pounds. The data for the tables and 

 conclusions which follow, therefore, cover a period of three years 

 and are derived from something over 420,000 pounds of fruit. The 

 exact locations, soil tvpes and varieties involved are shown in 

 Table I. 



