248 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



about as follows: Beu Davis, Jonathan, Rome Beauty, Winesap, Maiden 

 Blush, Gano and Huntsman. A few other scattering sorts were planted 

 but not in a general way. The selection of varieties was good, and could 

 not be greatly improved upon for that section at the present day except 

 to add Grimes Golden; but the proportion in which they were planted 

 can be improved upon, 



"THE GREAT MISTAKE 



was in solid block plantings and the excessive amount of Ben Davis. In 

 some instances such blocks of Ben Davis amounted to forty or even as 

 high as sixty acres of that variety alone. 



"In 1901 the Illinois Orchard Company, of which the writer is presi- 

 dent and manager, was organized for the purpose of operating in apple 

 growing, and that year some three hundred acres of land, mostly planted 

 to orchards, were purchased in the counties of Clay and Richland in this 

 southern Illinois section referred to. While preference was given to orch- 

 ards containing a number of varieties, no significance was attached to the 

 matter of cross-pollination as a factor in the production of crops and one 

 orchard of eighty acres was purchased which contained a block of sixty 

 acres all in Ben Davis. 



"During the past ten years those orchards of the company where 

 there was a reasonable amount of mixed planting have produced a pay- 

 ing crop eight years out of the ten. While no exact record has been 

 kept regarding the solid blocks of Ben Davis it is safe to say that they 

 have not produced more than four paying crops out of the ten referred 

 to above. The failures were due in some instances to spring frosts and 

 in others to excessive rains during blooming time or to continued cold 

 and rain combined. When the conditions were normal or favorable at 

 the time of blooming there was no material difference in the amount of 

 fruit buds set on the solid as against the mixed plats and the results were 

 equally satisfactory in both. 



"During the so-called off years or those where the weather conditions 

 were bad, cold rain or frost, or all of them, the setting of fruit was no- 

 ticeably greater on those rows along the lines of clearage between the 

 several varieties in the orchard, shading off to nothing in . the solid 

 blocks when the conditions were very bad. In one forty-acre orchard 

 planted to Jonathan and Ben Davis in the proportion of eight rows of 

 Ben Davis to one row of Jonathan the conditions have been very marked 

 indeed. During some of the off years the Jonathan row has been full of 

 fruit while the Ben Davis row immediately next to the Jonathan row 

 was reasonably full; the second row removed about half as much while 

 the third and fourth rows were without any fruit. Other orchards pro- ' 

 duced like results. 



"Other things are essential besides cross-pollination, such as spraying, 

 cultivation, and pruning, but without proper planting to secure cross-pol- 

 lination of one variety by another I would not expect the best of suc- 

 cess where the weather conditions are liable to enter into the proper 

 tertilizing of the bloom and the setting of the buds. 



