VARIETIES OF FRUIT 



FOR GROWING IN NORTH CAROLINA. 



W. N. HUTT. 



The selection of suitable varieties is fundamental to success in fruit 

 growing. If the tree is not of the proper breed, it makes no differ- 

 ence how rich the soil or how careful the tillage. Orchards are often 

 seen that are on good soils and receive the most assiduous attention 

 of their owners, but at harvest time they give no fruit, or fruit of 

 only indifferent quality, in return for all the trouble and expense 

 bestowed upon them. It is just as necessary for the successful fruit 

 grower to have trees of the right breed as for the dairyman or the 

 stock raiser to have animals of the right breed. Indeed, the stock 

 raiser, finding he has made a mistake in the selection of his animals, 

 can more easily and cheaply remedy his error than can the fruit 

 grower who has planted an orchard with poor nursery stock. 



A great deal of harm has been done to fruit growing by the irre- 

 sponsible, itinerant tree peddler. Many farmers have, to their sor- 

 row, paid high prices to tree peddlers for trees, the fruit of which 

 was represented to them by enlarged and over-painted pictures, bol- 

 stered up by imaginary and flamboyant descriptions. Most of the 

 fruit sold by such persons turns out to be entirely worthless or to be 

 old varieties renamed, or inferior varieties substituted for standard 

 sorts. A farmer once showed me a mature orchard, the trees of 

 which had been bought from a traveling nursery agent. It consisted 

 of eight acres and was supposed to be set with four leading commer- 

 cial varieties. The orchard had been carefully tended for fifteen 

 years. On coming into bearing, there were found to be as many 

 varieties as. there were trees, and not one of them was of any account. 

 They had been simply ungrafted, seedling trees. Such an experience 

 forever disgusts the ordinary farmer with fruit growing. If these 

 trees had been purchased from a reliable nursery no such loss would 

 have been experienced by the grower. Reputable nurserymen are in 

 the business to stay in it, and they take pains to grow only useful 

 varieties and exercise the greatest care to keep varieties true -to name. 



In the following pages will be found lists of varieties of each of the 

 classes of fruits that can be grown in North Carolina. Although a 

 great deal of thought, travel and research have been given to the mak- 

 ing of these lists, they are by no means to be taken as absolute or per- 

 fect. No effort has been spared to make them as accurate as possi- 

 ble, yet the behavior of varieties depends so much upon conditions 

 that the lists are to be considered as suggestive rather than dogmatic. 

 There are many old and standard varieties that from wide dissemi- 

 nation by nurserymen have shown themselves to be cosmopolitan in 



