I9I4 



Prosperity Must Come Soon. — Fac- 

 tories, owing to tlie uncertainty of con- 

 ditions, have laid in no supply. Job- 

 bing and retail houses have put off pur- 

 chasing until their stocks have been re- 

 duced to a niininiuni. In fact mer- 

 chandise stocks generally throughout 

 the country have been so depleted that 

 frequently it is impossible to get what 

 you want. The surplus has been con- 

 sumed and there is not enough raw 

 product or manufactured merchandise 

 on hand to take care of the present 

 business. Confidence apparently is re- 

 turning rapidly. The banks are full 

 of money; reserves far above required 

 amount. The crops are large all over 

 die entire United States. The harvest- 

 ing of crops will start money in cir- 

 culation and the public will have to 

 buy on account of the depleted supply. 

 Any good factory or any good going 

 concern with a good financial standing 

 and moral credit can secure all the 

 money it needs for purchasing supplies, 

 which will mean cash to the farmers 

 for their products. 



BETTER FRUIT 



Page ip 



Setting and Dropping of Fruit 



Continued from last issue 



Those who do not find pruning a 

 sufficiently drastic method of checking 

 wood growth to augment fruitfulness 

 may resort to the removal of a ring of 

 bark from the trunk of the tree. In 

 rather extensive experience on the 

 grounds of this Station we have found 

 ringing the bark of some use with the 

 apple. Our practice is to remove a ring 

 of bark from one-half to one inch wide 

 from young apple trees at the period 

 when the trees are making the greatest 

 growth, usually about the middle of 

 June. If the ringing is done earlier in 

 the season or later in the season than 

 June, injury is certain to result. Should 

 it be done when the growth is being 

 checked by drouth injury would also 

 result. The theory upon which ringing 

 is based is simple. Crude sap passes 

 froTu the roots to the leaves through 

 the outer layer of wood. In the leaves 

 this crude material is acted upon by 

 various agencies and transformed into 

 food substances. This accuiindated 

 material passes downway through the 

 inner bark to be distributed throughout 

 the plant where needed. When trees 

 are ringed the flow of sap upward 

 through the wood continues as before 

 the operation, but the newly made food 

 substance cannot pa.ss below the girdle, 

 and therefore accumulates above and is 

 used for the formation of fruit buds, 

 though at the expense of other parts of 

 the plant. 



Is heredity a factor in bud forma- 

 tion? Can the fruit-bearing habit be 

 passed down from one tree generation 

 to another? Can the habit he aug- 

 mented and intensified by selection? 

 Individuals in an orchard vary as to 

 time of coming into bearing, regularity 

 of bearing and nundier of buds formed 

 in any season. But it has not been 

 proved that buds chosen from the trees 

 best in these respects would produce 

 trees that are early bearers, or more 



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regular in bearing or more fruitful. 

 The present trend of science is against 

 such a possibility. Even were it possi- 

 ble, there are a number of practical 

 drawbacks. Thus, from tree generation 

 to tree generation constitutes a period 

 of time too long for most men to bend 

 their efforts, especially with that clear 

 conception of exactly what is wanted 

 that is rec|uired in the intricate prob- 

 lem of plant selection. The variations 

 at best are but slight and hundreds of 

 trees would have to be examined to find 

 one or two from which to start a new 

 race. One would have to make sure, 

 too, that the selected plants would not 

 fall behind their fellows in other char- 

 acters. The variations mentioned are 

 almosts certainly the result of environ- 

 ment and are not passed on from one 

 tree generation to another, so that even 

 were the obslables not so gieat in prac- 

 ticing sclectif)n that few men would be 

 able to or would take the pains to sur- 

 mount them, heredity could not be 

 counted as a factor in causing the for- 

 mation of buds. 



Another phase of the subject of fruit- 

 bud control is the biennial bearing 

 habit of some vaiieties of the several 

 fruits and especially of the apple. .So 

 marked is this habit hi apples that we 

 can ascribe it as one of the characters 

 of that fruit. A good deal of attention 

 has been given by orcliardists and 

 experimenters to biennial bearing in 

 apples, but as yet no one has been able 

 greatly to change nature's way. It is 

 maintained by some that the biennial 

 bearing habit is due to the heavx crop, 

 which exhausts the tree's energies, ancl 

 that a light crop follows because of 

 sucli exhaustion. This can be but 

 partly true; for all can call to mind 

 two, three or four heavy crops of some 

 varieties, after which the trees settle 

 down to bearing in alternate years. 

 Xor does thinning, often proposed as a 

 remedy for ovei'-bearing, prove of 

 nmch value. Pruning seems to alter the 

 c(Uidition but little. We have on record 

 several expei-iments in which blossoms 

 were stripped from the trees during 

 the bearing year to cause the setting of 



