Miscellaneous. 401 



He said that while all growers should strive for highest quality adverse 

 conditions were certain to produce at times fruits of lower grades that 

 never should be put on the market in a fresh state. Canners and evap- 

 orators are useful to dispose of these grades. Evaporated fruits may 

 be kept for years in cold storage and disposed of as the market demands. 

 About 75 per cent, of the apple growers in Wayne county, New York, 

 have evaporators, and in 1902 cured enough apples to load 800 cars with 

 the dried product. This immense quantity would make 120,000,000 pies 

 if used at the ordinary rate. It was all sold for good prices. On an aver- 

 age one bushel of apples turns out 7I ^ pounds of the evaporated article. 

 The process is a great safeguard against glut of fresh fruits and has 

 driven out about all cider mills and distilleries. Evaporation in Northern 

 New York has gone through long and expensive evolution, but is now 

 cheap and practical. Alost of the Wayne county apples are dried in cheap 

 "hop kilns" made with a slatted floor on which the pared and sliced fruits 

 are placed, with a furnace below and cupola above, to carry off moisttire, 

 but there are more expensive and elaborate plants. 



NU-RSER¥ STOCK. 



\A'. H. Skillman, Belle Mead, N. J., had some experiences with 

 nursery stock to relate. He claims there are more defective orchardists 

 than nurserymen, but that tree buyers have grievances other than sub- 

 stitution and disease infestation. One cause of weak trees is bad seeds. 

 More "Tennessee natural pits" are planted than are collected in the 

 Southern States. Too rapid forcing of young trees by nitrogenous ma- 

 nures is in the end injurious. Stripping off leaves in the fall to aid early 

 shipments is often harmful to young trees. . Poor digging greatly lessens 

 vitality, while the practice of cutting back young trees to hold them an- 

 other season tends to stunt future growth. Root gall is a serious trouble ; 

 it is not always evident, and may not kill the tree, but leaves it a cripple. 

 Bad heeling-in hurts great quantities of stock. Fumigation with hydro- 

 cyanic gas may injure trees if carelessly performed. "Black pith" in 

 young orchard trees is an indication of low vitality, such trees should 

 not be planted. While black pith is usually attributed to freezing, it is 

 not clear this is the real cause. 



PROPAGATING FROM BEARING TREES. 



An excellent paper on propagating from bearing trees and nursery 

 rows and the general influence of stocks on grafts, from the nursery 

 standpoint, was read by E. S. Black, Hightstown, N. J. Grafting and 

 budding from choice bearing trees to produce "pedigree strains" is all 

 right in theory, but in practice m.ost experiments have failed. It is the 

 business of mature trees to produce fruits, or in other words, to reproduc* 



11—26 



