392 STATE rOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



.profitableness of the opposite practice, but it is not onr present purpose to con- 

 sider the question, and we therefore, proceed upon the assunij^tiou that the 

 present preferences of our leadini^; markets are to be consulted in the planting 

 of commercial orcliards. In taking leave, for the present, of this particular 

 branch of our subject, \\q may indulge the suggestion that the commercial fruit 

 interest, being so peculiarly amenable to the money question, and withal one of 

 so direct and simple a character when separately considered may, for these rea- 

 sons, be held to call less ini2)eratively for the fostering and educating intluences 

 of this society, since the man who will venture Ijlindly and ignorantly upon the 

 planting of fruits for commercial purposes, may, as a rule, be sot down as 

 hopelessly beyond tlic reach of its intluences. 



HOME ORCHAllDS. 



The broadest held, and one which seems most imperatively to call for the 

 missionary labors of tlie society, is the one occupied by tho-o who plant mainly 

 for local or home consumption, with a possible surplus, in some cases, for the 

 market, such as the amateurs of fruit, the planters of city and village gardens, 

 and the more extensive class who jilant and manage farm orchards, comprising 

 our fanners, mechanics, day laborers, professional and business men to whom 

 fruit culture is but an incidental matter, and whose minds are as a rule too 

 fully absorbed in their leading pursuits to leave ojjportunity or disposition for 

 such study of the suljject as may be necessary to enable them to wisely adapt 

 their selections for planting to the purposes for which they may plant. 



lu consideration of the immense mass of mere rubbish which goes to the 

 making up of our standard works upon fruits as well as the catalogues of many 

 of our nurseries, the needs of this class of planters demand the benefits of a 

 wide experience to enable them to select judiciously from the sources above 

 named, if indeed they do not, instead of consulting them, follow the dictum of 

 some enterprising "tree peddler" with his own objects to subserve and his 

 own plants to be disposed of, while on another hand so great is the variableness 

 of varieties under modifying clinnitic or other inlluences that no such consulta- 

 tions call be safely relied on except when taken in connection witli the deduc- 

 tions of local experience. 



Besides the selections for those ])uriioses should unquestionably be made with 

 but a secondary reference to the points so indispensable to the profitableness of 

 a mere market i)lantation; the first or leading consideration being (piality, 

 including delicacy of ilavor and texture, wiiich, for home use, may and should 

 take precedence of beauty of specimens, ability to bear rough treatment, and 

 even to some extent of production. Indeed, to the great majority of these 

 classes of })lanters so very serious is this difficulty that we may be excused for 

 iteration in part by remarking that even in our standard fruit books the 

 descriptions, often very crude and imperfect, will be found to be so buried 

 beneath an immense mass of descriptions of indilTorent or worthless sorts as to 

 render a wise selection, aside from local knowledge or experience, a practical 

 impossibility. )Still, underneath this mass of rubbish lie hiddeti the results of 

 hundreds of years of experience and progress in the field of pomology, includ- 

 ing many of its choicest gems, some of which for ages have been recognized 

 as distinctive way marks of progress. AVe have, therefore, no alternative but 

 to subject this mass to the winnowing and sifting process, retaining the grain 

 and driving away the chaff, or otherwise to ignore tiie labors of the past and 

 trust the tastes and selections of our people to be formed upon the narrow, and 



