AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



Wednesday Afternoon, 



THE VARIETAL ADAPTABILITY PROBLEM AND ITS 

 BEARING ON COMMERCIAL ORCHARDING. 



By H. P. Gould, Pomologist, U. S. Department of Agriculture. 

 Members of the Maine State Pomological Society, Ladies and 

 Gentlemen: 



I do not presume that it is necessar}' for me to offer any 

 defense of the subject which is presented for discussion at 

 this time. It may be said in passing, however, that it was sug- 

 gested, in substance at least, in a letter which I received some 

 weeks ago from the President of your society. This, indeed, 

 furnished me with an adequate topic for it was quite in line 

 with much of my thinking in connection with my work in the 

 Department of Agriculture. 



If there is any consistency in the way in which my subject 

 is worded, as it appears on your program, it implies that there 

 is a problem in connection with the adaptability of varieties; 

 it likewise implies that the problem has some bearing on com- 

 mercial orcharding. We want to find out just what that prob- 

 lem is if we can, and what its solution is. If it bears some re- 

 lation to success in commercial orcharding, it is important that 

 we know it. 



Now, at the outset, the fact ought to be very clearly in mind 

 that a variety is not a definite and fixed thing. A variety as it 

 develops in an orchard in Maine, or in Pennsylvania ; in Vir- 

 ginia, or in Georgia ; in Missouri, or in Oregon, is the product 

 of the conditions under which it has grown. As the environ- 

 ment varies so the results vary, as manifested in the behavior 

 of diflfercnt fruits and of diflferent varieties. 



But not all varieties respond in the same way or in the same 

 degree to the same or similar influences. For instance, your 

 most extensively grown variety, the Baldwin, decreases in 

 value the farther south it is grown. I have seen it in many 



