Smnmcr Meeting. Ill 



and unfrequented forest is the habitation of wild animals and birds, so 

 may the extensive orchards after becoming thickly grown become, to 

 a greater extent, the habitation and harbor for insects and fungi than the 

 smaller and more frequented blocks. 



The time for gathering our commercial crops is also very impor- 

 tant. Fruit should always be gathered when at the proper stage of ripe- 

 ning, regardless of the time of season. This season our apples matured 

 Ihree weeks to one month earlier than last year, and many growers sus- 

 tained heavy loss by waiting until fruit was too ripe to pack. 



As a large per cent, of the growth in the development of tree fruits 

 and plants is supplied by light and air we perhaps give too little consid- 

 eration to this feature of fruit culture and have suffered by doing 

 so. We know of no vocation that requires the application of good judg- 

 ment and common sense more, or one that pays any better on the capital 

 invested, when appHed, than commercial orcharding. The individual 

 must take the best information he can get as to soil, varieties, care and 

 culture, and hitelligently apply it to his needs, governed by local environ- 

 ments with which he is surrounded. Do this and he will succeed in grow- 

 ing an orchard. 



HEREDITY IN PLANTS. 



, (I'\ S. Earl in Am. Gardening.) 



The great importance of heredity as a factor in controlling plant 

 diseases is only now beginning to be fully recognized. Individual plants, 

 like individual men, vary in their ability to resist disease. Even in plants 

 of the same cultural variety, this difference in resisting power is often 

 quite marked. It has long been observed that some varieties are more 

 resistant than others. It is now found that, like other qualities, this 

 power of resistance is inheritable, and that by carefully breeding from 

 the most resistant individuals, it is often possible, to establish resistant 

 strains or varieties. This point was clearly brought out at the recent 

 Conference on Plant Breeding in New York. The case of resistant 

 strains of cotton, described by Mr. Orton, of the Department of Agri- 

 culture, was particularly interesting. In a very few years he has been 

 able to select strains of cotton, practically immune to the wilt, a disease 

 that has devastated large areas in the Southern States. Spraying to pre- 

 vent disease is at best an expensive and exacting operation, and culti- 

 vators will welcome the day, if it shall ever come, when the breeding 

 and selection of resistant varieties shall make it no longer necessary. 



