PROMISING NEW FRUITS. 



r.y WILLIAM A. TAYLOR, 

 Pomologist in Charge of Field Investigations, Bureau of Plant Industry. 



INTRODUCTION. 



So long as improvement of fruits continues, whether through chance 

 variation or through systematic selection and breeding, it will be neces- 

 sary for the progressive fruit grower to keep in touch with the advances 

 that are being made along the particular lines in which he is interested. 

 The largest profits in commercial fruit growing not infrequently result 

 from judicious planting of comparatively new varieties which have 

 shown strong indications of adaptability to particular regions or to 

 special uses before either of these points has been fully established by 

 actual experience. It is the purpose of the series of Yearbook papers 

 to which the present article belongs a to direct the attention of fruit 

 growers to some of those new or little-known varieties of important 

 fruits which appear worthy of testing in different parts of the country. 



BLOOMFIELD APPLE. 



(SYNONYMS: Bentley 1 s Seedling, Bloomfield Bentley.) 



[PLATE L.] 



This very promising autumn variety for the home orchard and 

 near-by market originated as a chance seedling which came into 

 bearing about 1880 at Bloomfield, the farm of the late Richard T. 

 Bentle}', of Sandy Spring, Montgomery County, Md. Its fruit was 

 found to be so excellent in quality, as well as so handsome in appear- 

 ance, that it was quite widely disseminated throughout Montgomery 

 and Prince George counties, Md., by top grafting trees in established 

 orchards. Soon thereafter it was commercially propagated by the late 

 Chalkley Gillingham, of Accotink, Fairfax County, Va., and other 

 local nurserymen of Maryland and Virginia, so that it is now quite 

 widely disseminated through the family orchards of the Potomac River 

 counties of both States. Prior to 1894 it was known as "Beniley's 

 .v , /////^/, ? ' but the attention of Mr. John C. Bentley, the present owner 

 of the farm on which the variety originated, having been called to the 



<* See Yearbooks of the Department of Agriculture for 1901 (p. 381), 1902 (p. 469), 

 and 1903 (p. 267). 



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