88 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Question : What about the York Imperial in the State of 

 Maine ? 



Mr. Gould: I do not beheve I am prepared to state specifi- 

 cally as to that. I question somewhat its adaptability. As I 

 have seen it growing in the Piedmont territory in \'irginia, 

 especially at an elevation of about i,ooo feet, it does not do well. 

 It drops prematurely, not holding to the trees with sufficient 

 firmness. That same variety, however, grown up in the moun- 

 tains, three or four hundred feet higher, does very much better. 

 It is an apple that is grown very little in the North, and I have 

 not had data enough concerning it to safely draw any conclu- 

 sion, but it is my impression that it would be of doubtful value. 

 It does very well as far north as southern Pennsylvania and New 

 Jersey. 



Mr. PopE: Is it desirable to have the variety for any pur- 

 pose? 



Mr. Gould : As it usually grows it has rather an undesirable 

 shape ; it is a lop-sided apple, quite decidedly oblique, and it does 

 not have high quality. It ranks above the Ben Davis in quality, 

 but I do not believe that it would have any points of advantage 

 over Baldwin even if it could be grown in Maine. The question 

 of varieties opens up a very large problem. I do not believe that 

 in Maine, or in any other of the large commercial apple growing 

 sections the ideal variety is yet known. And if you stop to think 

 of the situation at all, the varieties which are known commer- 

 cially now and have a commercial rating are the varieties which 

 have been known commercially for years. There has been 

 advancement in methods of orchard management, in methods of 

 tillage, pruning, spraying, and pretty nearly everything else con- 

 nected with the orchard except in varieties, and there has not 

 been as much attention paid to getting new varieties and develop- 

 ing them — finding ov:t their value — as I believe there should be, 

 and as the merits of the case deserve. If all of the State Horti- 

 cultural Societies could do what the Minnesota Society has done, 

 it might stimulate interest in this direction, and very material 

 good might result from it, — perhaps not in this generation but 

 in the days to come, because of the general information which 

 wovild be disseminated thereby. The Minnesota State Horticul- 

 tural Society has ofl:'ered a prize of $l.ooo — and that money is in 



