STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 95 



north the better. Our friend, Bro. Cummings, has llie most 

 ideal location, or one of the most ideal, that I ever saw. We 

 have a location in Massachusetts, Apple Valley, that is similar 

 to it. Where the land lies up against the hills and mountains 

 that protect it on the north and west, where the orchards get 

 the full benefit of the sunshine, which is especially desirable 

 along through the late summer and early fall in ripening up 

 the fruit and putting on that beautiful finishing touch, it. is one 

 of the greatest things in the world. But that is not material. 

 Select your best soil, and as far as you may, the upland soil 

 which is well drained, both by natural and atmospheric drainage. 



Now as to the nursery stock. I don't know about the con- 

 dition of your nurseries in the Sjate of Maine, but I do believe 

 it is a grand opening for any one to establish nurseries here and 

 grow trees ; and to grow good trees and charge a good price 

 for them, because they are worth a good price. It is a well- 

 known fact in horticulture that plants and shrubs thrive best in 

 the section where they are grown, and I believe that is true in 

 regard to apple trees. Certainly get your stock, as far as you 

 can, from the same latitude. Don't go south for your apple 

 trees, because you will be pretty apt to find that unless you keep 

 them growing thriftily and vigorously, they will have black 

 hearts and deteriorate. Buy of a good nursery house, specify 

 what you wish, be willing to pay for it, and buy good two-year- 

 old trees, if it is possible to obtain them. If it is impossible to 

 get them and you are all ready to plant, you may possibly accept 

 the one-year-old trees. I know there is a difference of opinion 

 about that. But from my own experience and talking with the 

 best nursery houses, I am thoroughly convinced that a two-year- 

 old tree is the best tree to set that we can get from the nursery, 

 to transplant in a way that there will be the least possible break 

 in its growth. We might take a young tree, a yearling tree we 

 will say, and perhaps train it more to our ideas ; still, by getting 

 two-year-old trees we gain a year's time. We buy a year's time 

 in the growth of the tree for usually about ten cents, and I con- 

 sider it a poor business proposition to get a one-year-old tree 

 and take the difiference in size for the sake of saving ten cents. 



Now I am in the apple business for two reasons. Primarily, 

 because I love it. In the second place I am in it to make money. 



