STATK POMOI.OGICAI,. SOCIEJTY. 4I 



variety of high quahty as I use the term in this paper, and as it 

 is understood among fruit judges. 



This demand for apples that will stand up in shipping, and this 

 scramble for hardy varieties passed along to us from the neces- 

 sities of the interior states have had the effect to rivet attention 

 on these new kinds having no other characteristics of merit than 

 those for which their originators were searching. The late 

 planting of trees, even here as well as in those sections of the 

 country where they can do no better, has been chiefly of these 

 sorts so manifestly inferior in quality. To such extent have 

 planters and propagators been absorbed in this one idea that they 

 have hardly thought of the quality of the fruit they were prepar- 

 ing to grow. And not only this, but they have allowed varieties 

 of high merit to fall out of attention for no other reason than that 

 they wTre old. 



KICH QUALITY WANTED. 



This effort to produce shipping fruit, together with the 

 uncalled for chase after hardy varieties, is having the effect to 

 liil the country up with inferior apples. We claim this is all 

 wrong, and also that it is damaging to the fruit industry. Fruit 

 growers are losing sight of the home market. While an outlet 

 is needed for such of surplus fruit as there may be, yet the home 

 market is far the more important, and never should be lost sight 

 of. The tendency, so general in late years, to plant only these 

 varieties inferior in quality has the effect to destroy demand 

 rather than increase it. A purchaser desiring some apples for 

 home use buys a barrel of the showy Ben Davis. The cook finds 

 them inferior for her department, the family cannot eat them — 

 that one barrel trails along all W' inter. The result is not only that 

 few such apples are purchased, but what is worse, the desire for 

 apples and the appreciation of them in the family is destroyed. 

 While our population is increasing, and while the ability to 

 gratify all des^'res of the appetite is on the increase among the 

 non-producing people, the present course in apple growing serves 

 to destroy the demand, thus created. Place a barrel of fragrant 

 Gravensteins or delicious Bellflowers in place of those Ben Davis 

 and several barrels will be called for, and an appreciation of fruit 

 so cultivated that the demand will be constant so long as a supply 

 is within reach. It is a law^ of demand that the higher the qual- 



