522 ANNUAL, REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



in the color of the Baldwin apple when cultivated and when not 

 cultivated. That is, do thej mature earlier when cultivated or 

 mature earlier when not cultivated. The second question that I 

 would like to ask him is, what proportion of the Baldwin apples are 

 used for cider ax>ples. 



MB. CREASY.— In reply to the last question I would say that 

 the Baldwin apple gives us few cider apples. They run pretty much 

 the same size and we have very few that are wormy. We have only 

 cultivated our Baldwin orchard a few years. We alternated it with 

 peaches and farmed it the first year with potatoes and after that put 

 nothing in it. but we cultivated the orchard while the peaches were 

 growing and had some enormous crops for a few years, but I don't 

 think I would do that again; I think I simply would plant it with 

 apples. If you cannot cultivate the land on account of rocks and 

 stumps I would phosphate it. The apples on our Baldwin orchards, 

 that we have not farmed for a number of years, seem to ripen very 

 nicely; in my estimation they ripen a little earlier than those that 

 are cultivated, as a rule. While the specimens are very fine on the 

 cultivated trees, and far above the average size, yet they drop a 

 great deal more. 



MR. LESHER. — You commence to pick about what season of the 

 vear? 



MR. CREASY. — Whenever they begin to color. We have com- 

 menced the latter part of September in some years and some years 

 in October. October is our month but it depends altogether on the 

 color because it is important that they be colored. 



DR. GUMP. — I don't wish to take exceptions to anything that the 

 gentleman has said, but the honorable gentleman makes a mistake 

 when he says if he planted an orchard of 499 trees he would plant 

 them all Baldwin and the one Northern Spy and graft that to a 

 Baldwin. That is too general. Twenty-five years experience in 

 Southern Pennsylvania has taught me that the Baldwin apple is not 

 a success with us. It is too far south. That is one reason why I 

 think the gentleman makes a mistake when he advises the planting 

 of Baldwin's entirely. That same advice was given me when I 

 planted my orchard 23 years ago, by a gentleman who said if I 

 planted an orchard of 500 trees, I should plant 499 Baldwin trees, 

 and I said, what other variety would you plant? He said, I would 

 make it a Baldwin. I did so, and, gentlemen, had I* planted my .500 

 York Imperials instead of Baldwins, I would be worth .flO,000 more 

 to-day. My Baldwin trees are large thrifty but they havn't given me 

 500 bushels a year to put in cold storage. They have given me 

 apples but they fall too soon. If you pick them, as the honorable 

 gentleman says, before they are ripe, I fear they would not be sale- 

 able, if you pick them when they are ripe they don't keep well. If 

 you put them in a cold storage house cooled with ic. in onv pcM-tion, 

 at a temperature of 32 to 34, they will speck for you; there appear 

 little black specks on them. So I want to speak of this to show that 

 the suggestion made by the gentleman is too far reachinf; for all of 

 us. It is all right for Northern Pennsylvania anrl New York and 

 even there, the Baldwin apple does not compare with ours so far as 

 the quality and color are concerned. My Baldwin trees are a great 

 deal larger than others, but I have a row of York Imperials 36 feet 



