CHAPTER XII. 



VARIETIES. 



The varieties grown. Nearly all the bearing orchards are made up of 

 a mixture of Baldwin and Rhode Island Greening, with a few trees of 

 other kinds. There are more Baldwins than of all other varieties com- 

 bined. Probably eighty to ninety per cent of all the trees are either 

 Baldwin or Greening. The larger part of the balance are Tompkins King, 

 Northern Spy, Twenty Ounce and Roxbury Russet. There are some 

 trees of many other varieties but the numbers are so small as to be 

 unimportant in comparison with the above kinds. Some of these less 

 important varieties are : Hubbardston, Ben Davis, Esopus Spitzenburg, 

 Wagener, Duchess of Oldenburg, Red Astrachan. 



The young orchards also differ much in varieties, but the larger part 

 are planted to Baldwin, Ben Davis, Greening, Hubbardston. Other 

 varieties that are being planted to a very limited extent are: Duchess 

 of Oldenburg, Wealthy, Wolf River, Mann, Grimes Golden, Rome Beauty, 

 Maiden Blush, Red Astrachan, Northern Spy, Russets, Snow, Yellow 

 Bellflower, Boiken, Mclntosh Red, Gravenstein, Sutton Beauty, Bis- 

 mark, etc. 



Variations ivithin the variety. " We know that no two trees in any 

 orchard are alike, either in the amount of fruit which they bear or in 

 their vigor and habit of growth. Some are uniformly productive and 

 some are uniformly unproductive. We know, too, that scions or buds 

 tend to reproduce the characters of the tree from which they are taken. 

 A gardener would never think of taking cuttings from a rose-bush, or 

 chrysanthemum, or a carnation which does not bear flowers. Why 

 should a fruit-grower take scions from a tree which he knows to be 

 unprofitable ? 



' The indiscriminate cutting of scions is too clumsy and inexact a prac- 

 tice for these days, when we are trying to introduce scientific methods 

 into our farming."* 



Long ago men learned that two cows were not necessarily alike because 

 they were both Jerseys. The man who would raise cattle from any indi- 

 vidual merely because it belonged to the desired breed would be ridiculed. 

 But there are as great differences between Baldwin apple-trees as there 

 are between Jersey cows. 



*L. H. Bailey, Cornell Bulletin 102, Oct., 1895. 



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