WINTER MEETING. 129 



the earliest that will do to ship at all, to the latest keepers in your home-made 

 cold storage— I may say from the Early Harvest and Red Astrachan to the Willow 

 Twig and Little Romanite. 



You will want, then, to build up a trade of your own, and to hold your cusr 

 tomers you must be able to supply them yourself from the first to the last of the 

 apple season. 



It might, however, be well to impress you that variety must depend on cli- 

 mate and locality, even as much as on the market. And, further, you must un- 

 derstand in a general way that the best apples are by no means always the most 

 profitable. For profit you will want to plant every year bearing kinds, and such 

 of them as mature the best colored fruit, freest from worms and scab. 



Still, Mr. Jones, if you are going into the business somewhat extensively, 

 you can afford to plant some of the best varieties and build up a market also for 

 your fancy brands— like the Huntsman's Favorite and the White Winter Pearmain 

 and some other dessert sorts. 



If, however, you expect to raise apples as most of your neighbors do, and to 

 -dispose of in their market, you can learn best from them what has been the most 

 profitable variety. Then, again, ifyou wish to grow apples for pleasure as well as 

 profit, you can appropriately plant of many varieties of the new kinds that the 

 nurseries are pushing at high prices. And you can furthermore originate also 

 fiome yourself, and call one "Jones' Highfalootin." 



When you have decided as to variety, you will get them from the nearest 

 nursery that you deem reliable ; and if your tree man begins to talk "whole root " 

 to you, give him a nod and wink and cry "chestnuts" at hitn, from the northwest 

 corner of your mouth. 



And here is my reason for this advice : Four years ago I had a reliable nur- 

 seryman put me up 100 whole-root grafts to test the matter myself. With a 

 sharpened hoe-handle I made good holes, and planted them deep; with so much 

 root to start on they made extra yearlings, when I transplanted most of them ; but 

 with so much root of the French crab-seedling, they failed to make proper ones 

 :from the graft scion, and now I have a lot of practically dwarf apple trees. 



I once gave my opinion from theory in favor of whole- root grafts, and now I 

 take it all back, after, to me, satisfactory experience. 



if your nurseryman talks " crown-grafc " or "budded stock" to you, tell him 

 you don't care a continental how the trees were made, you want first-class root 

 from the graft scion itself, or something known to be more vigorous. 



Unless you have the utmost confidence in your nurseryman, take one or t^vo 

 of your successful apple-raising neighbors along with you, and if necessary pay 

 double price for strictly choice trees with first-class roots running out equally on 

 all sides. See that every tree is a center stem one, with limbs ( if old enough to have 

 limbs) branching out on all sides like a typical spruce or cedar tree. Give your 

 nurseryman to understand about the examination and trial you have gone through, 

 and he will readily lay his forked, crotched, scabby, stunted and wormy trees 

 aside for some honest greenhorn, at cheap prices. 



Whether a tree is a yearling without a limb, or a five-year-old ready to bear, 

 let the center stem be big at the bottom and tapering up to a small top, like a 

 buggy whip, only still more so. 



Whether you plant yearlings or five-year-old, they will all be aboutthe same 

 size six or seven years after planting, with the chances in favor of the younger 

 trees being the most firmly rooted. But up to that time the older trees will have 

 paid decidedly the best. 

 H— 9 



