370 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Ofif. Doc. 



And still we need others. Of this collecHon, not one is perfect; 

 not one that does not hav^e some fault or ohjectionahle feature of 

 sonu^ kind either in fruit or tree. 



Following up the liistorv of nearly all of our most valuable and 

 best known varieties, we tind where we can trace them to their 

 origin that they came into being in most cases as chance seedlings, 

 without the aid or intervention in any way of man. 



In this connection it nmy not be inconsistent for me to repeat 

 what Marshall V. Wilder as President of the American Pomologi- 

 cal Society said repeatedly 50 years and more ago: "It was my 

 first, so shall i( be mv continual and last advice: 'Plant the most 

 nuiture and perfect seed of the most hardy, vigorous and valuable 

 varieties; and as a shorter process, insuring more certain and happy 

 results, cross, or hybridize your best fruits.' " This advice I wisli 

 was being more commonly followed today. If "chance" has ac- 

 complished so much in the past in producing ai)ple vnrieties, what 

 are the possibilities in the production of varieties in the future, 

 should all the knowledge of the present time regarding plant breed- 

 ing and heredity be directed to this end? 



GENERAL ORCHARD MANAGEMENT 



By SAMUEL FRAZER, Orchardint, OeMseo, N. Y. 



In discussing this question of General Orchard Management it 

 may be wise to first relate the story of the beginning of our young 

 orchards. These were planted nearly four years ago. At that 

 time I had the idea that the best thing for me to do would be to 

 top work most of the treas to the varieties I intended to grow. 1 

 did not top work everything, but planted some varieties as they 

 came direct from the nursery in order to have them as checks. I 

 may say at the outset that I am not in favor of the top-working 

 and have been forced to this conclusion by my own results. It may 

 be that as time goes on I shall see reason to change my mind. Thus 

 far I am not prepared to advise it. 



We have something like 150 acres of apples, the permanent va- 

 rieties being Baldwin, Greening and Northern Spy. lliere are 

 but 10 acres of bearing trees on the farm ; among these we found 

 3 Greening, 8 Baldwin and 3 Spy trees which appeared to be better 

 than the others, and almost all of the wood we needed for top- 

 working was taken from these trees. In order to have a complete 

 check on the method I top-worked six rows of Greening with 

 scions taken from an ordinary nursery. T may say here that these 

 do not show the same type of foliage that we find on our own 

 trees. We can detect individual differences in trees, and we know 

 that in some cases these are transmitted. 



We began by planting our trees in the spring with the idea of 

 budding them in the fall, A few which were planted the fall pre- 



