64 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



And in Coleman's Rural World, Mr. P. M. 

 Kiely, of St. Louis writes : 



"The publication in your journal a few 

 weeks ago on my letter on the Ben Davis 

 apple has brought to the front a number of 

 defenders of old Ben. Strangely enough 

 the parties coming to the rescue of this 

 declining apple are those having large Ben 

 Davis orchards — many of them planted years 

 ago when this variety had more claims to 

 recognition than it has now, or ever will 

 have again. It is natural for a man to set a 

 high valuation on his property and of course 

 such people frown at any statement that 

 reflects on their judgment or orchards. An 

 apple dealer in Kansas City who is loaded 

 to the guards with Ben Davis makes a hard 

 fight for it in a communication to several 

 trade journals patronized by dealers. The 

 gentlemen declares he has letters from many 

 states calling for Ben Davis but he neglected 

 to add that it was useless for them to ask 

 for any other variety and that they were 

 looking for the low figures likely to arise 

 where the Ben Davis were so plenty and 

 all other varieties so exceedingly scarce. 



"At the late meeting in this city of the 

 National Apple Growers' Association I met 

 a large number of men y;hose orchards un- 

 fortunately were composed largely of Ben 

 Davis. Most of them admitted to me that 



if they were planting again they would raise 

 more varieties that could be acceptable in 

 every market and worthy of the patronage 

 of all — something that would command good 

 prices regardless of how low Ben Davis 

 figures were. Other growers thought I 

 wanted them to root out all their Ben Davis 

 orchards — an idea I never entertained. A 

 number of these gentlemen submitted what 

 they regarded a knock out argument in 

 ' What will you give us instead — what will 

 take its place? ' Now there is no necessity 

 for seeking or presenting any one variety 

 but as I stated in my former article, several 

 and not one variety should take its place. 

 W. T. Flourney of Marionville, Mo., one of 

 the most successful fruit growers in the 

 state and who owned too many Ben Davis 

 trees to condemn them, acknowledged that, 

 the article would doubtless change many 

 existing ideas and was especially valuable to 

 those contemplating setting out new or- 

 chards. In fact nearl}' all submitted there 

 was enough already planted and it was time 

 to call a halt on the Ben Davis, because if 

 another tree is not planted in the next 

 twenty years, the western markets will re- 

 main deluged with it during all that time, 

 because hundreds — I might say thousands 

 of orchards are composed mainly of young 

 Ben Davis trees." 



CHIEF MACKINNON ON THE BEN DAVIS APPLE IN 



GREAT BRITAIN. 



MR. W. A. MacKinnon, chief of the 

 Fruit Division of the Dominion De- 

 partment of Agriculture, writing from Eng- 

 land with reference to ihe Ben Davis apple, 

 states that the enormous surplus in the 

 western and south-western States is more 

 than likely to lead to the increased export of 

 the Ben Davis, especially in view of the fact 

 that a large area of newly planted trees will 

 soon be contributing to the tide, which, ac- 

 cording to Mr. Keely, is already backing up. 



" I am no enemy of the Ben Davis," writes 

 Mr. MacKinnon, "but their quality is begin- 

 ning to be better, or ' worse ', known here 

 in England, and our own growers must be 

 on the alert and stop planting, or begin to 

 graft as soon as the situation demands it. 

 If our neighbors to the south are trapped 

 that is the time for us to shoot ahead with 

 large consignments of high class apples in 

 sound condition." 



