S6 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



charge as it is to study the soil, the cHmate, or any other factor. 

 Do not mistake my meaning. A few words in explanation will 

 make it plain. One fruit grower prunes, and cultivates and fer- 

 tilizes his orchard ; another one — his neighbor — does not. In 

 the first case the orchard is thrifty, the fruit is large, the crops 

 regular and abundant ; in the second orchard all these evidences 

 of perfect adaptation are wanting and the varieties seein to be 

 weak of tree, too small of fruit and irregular in the bearing of 

 even scanty crops. Or one orchard is thoroughly sprayed; the 

 fruit holds to the trees well and is free from imperfections. 

 Another orchard of the same varieties is unsprayed ; niuch of 

 the fruit drops prematurely and of that which remains, some 

 varieties appear to be ruinously subject to scab and, therefore, 

 not adapted to the conditions. But if thorough and intelligent 

 care will overcome such evidences of poor adaptation, shall we 

 say that the lack of it is due to some inherent fault of the variety, 

 or shall we lay the trouble at the feet of the owner and say that 

 he lacks adaptation to fruit growing? 



But the fact of great variation in varieties — in some more than 

 in otners and in different directions — is the essential thing to be 

 grasped and that man's power to direct variation rests in his 

 ability to make or change environment ; that beyond man's 

 power, there are also agencies at work, having each its own 

 influence upon the forms of life within its sphere. The prac- 

 tical application of these deductions to the solution of the 

 "variety problem" is : Study the varieties you wish to plant 

 under as many different conditions as possible, carefully noting 

 the variations which you see ; be sure to connect cause and 

 effect; then study the conditions of soil, climate, etc.. in all their 

 varied factors of influence under which you wish to plart them, 

 and be governed thereby. 



