The Nurserymen and the Fruit-Growers. 297 



I once heai'd Mr. E. L. Smith say : "There is not an apple of strictly high 

 class merit in cultivation today but what was developed over one hundred years 

 ago." Possibly this may be a little strong, but it is very near the truth, at least. 



We don"t want more new varieties ; we want the development and betterment 

 of the best varieties we now have. 



This constant chase after new names, too often solely for the sake of work- 

 ing the public by selling the so-called novelty at ridiculously high prices is an 

 injury to the fruit industry. 



Not much is known of the original apple, save that it was small, sour and 

 crabbed. Pliny says of some of the varieties in cultivation in his time that 

 they were so sour they would take the edge ofE a knife. Today, taking the entire 

 number of apples listed and offered for sale by American nurserymen, we find 

 over one thousand varieties. Is not that about enough, and is it not time fo turn 

 our attention to the improvement of what we have rather than making the intro- 

 duction of something new our sole aim? 



I am not objecting to new varieties if some one working along the right line, 

 that of careful selection and crossing within the limits of the vanity, rather than 

 hybridization, produces something that is a distinct improvement and worthy a 

 new name, then let us have it, by all means. But let it be proved first that it is 

 fixed in type and not a mere sport, before all the superlative adjectives of the 

 English language are exhausted in heralding it forth to the ever verdant public. 



INDIVIDUALITY. 



Plant breeding is not an exact science ; one will always be more or less baf- 

 fled in attaining what he is striving for. One can never hope to produce such 

 exact results as can be done in the breeding of animals, and yet a very great 

 deal can be accomplished by careful selection. 



Mr. L. H. Bailey says : "I believe the time has come when nurserymen must 

 cease to propagate indiscriminately from stock merely because it belongs to a 

 given variety. He should propagate only from stock or trees that he knows 

 to have direct merit for efficiency. There are those who deny that the individual 

 characteristics of a variety are in any way impressed upon its bud propagated 

 offspring, but these persons are fewer each year, and the evidence to combat them 

 is constantly stronger." 



In my orchard I have one hundred Baldwin apples, and I verily believe there 

 are ten kinds of Baldwins among them. One tree will produce a m-edium-sized. 

 very high-colored, flrm-fleshed apple, the very ideal of the variety, while an ad- 

 joining tree may have over-sized, green-colored, coarse-fleshed fruit. One will bear 

 uniform heavy crops ; another little or none. 



And so on ; all no doubt Baldwins, but how different. Now, is it not fair to 

 presume that the tree bearing the ideal fruit is better for propagating purposes 

 than any of the others, and that if all the trees had been budded or grafted from 

 such a tree that the result would have been much beter. 



The cattle breeder when he wants the best selects not animals from his 

 nursery, but mature stock,, to produce the type he wants. So I believe you must 

 select your buds and scions, for best results, from mature trees that have the 

 qualities you wish to reproduce. The prime object in growinp a fruit tree is to 

 produce fruit, and it certainly seems more likely that this will be accomplished by 

 such a course than by the plan of cutting buds and scions only from the 

 nursery row. 



Again quoting Prof. Bailey : "Intelligent selection, having in mind an ideal 

 form, is man's nearest approach to the Creator in his dealings with the organic 

 world." 



The fruit-grower must depend upon the nurseryman for this intelligent 

 selection. 



Gentlemen, you have a splendid calling. In no line of human production is 

 there a wider field of usefulness than in yours, properly conducted. 



