12 



very fair care. They were nearly in the balance w-'.hen I 

 took them, and I made up my mind that I would follow out 

 a definite course of culture, fertilization, spraying, pruning, 

 and this whole business, and see if I could so harmonize 

 these various factors which have so much influence on the 

 annual bearing and tlien continue this system which I set 

 out on for a term of years long enough to establish some- 

 thing definite to go by, and I have had remarkable success 

 with that particular variety. 



Now, here comes the problem again: we, as fo'uit grow- 

 ers in New England, have been trying to grow a'oout 15 or 

 20 and some people 30 difi^erent varieties all along the same 

 line, looking to the same factor to solve all of our problems 

 with these different varieties. What may prove to be the 

 ideal system or ideal fertilization or amount of moisture for 

 one variety will not, in all cases, prove out to be the ideal 

 condition for some other variety, so there are all these fac- 

 tors to be taken into account in bringing into bearing and 

 keeping in bearing each different variety which we grow 

 commercially hpre in New England. 



The little block of trees, are of the Northern Spy varie- 

 ty, and it has been the history of the Northern Spy, especial- 

 ly in ]\raine, that it is a very shy bearing variety, and when 

 a nursery agent comes along through the towns to sell 

 nursery stock and says anything about Northern Spy, you 

 will see people shake their heads as much as to say. "Take 

 it away, they never bear any fruit in our section." But 

 under this system I have had six annual crops from the 54r 

 trees in this little block. 



These trees are about 35 or 36 years old now, and they 

 are not large : they have grown slowly but steadily, they are 

 healthy, firm and hard. The largest crop for any one sea- 

 son was 250 barrels, and the lowest crop w^as the crop in 

 1915, 100 barrels. The reason for this low yield was that 

 although we had a splendid blossom and a fine set of fruit, 

 on June 3rd we had a very heavy freeze, something we have 

 not had for nearly 20 years in Maine, and it froze off quite 



