54 HOW TO SELECT A FEW VARIETIES. 



nurserymen's catalogues of fruit trees, he becomes 

 bewildered by the multiplicity of sorts minutely de- 

 scribed and recommended for cultivation. Then if 

 he decides to attend some horticultural exhibition, 

 and make the selection from the choice kinds on the 

 tables, the same perplexity arises, how to select five 

 or ten varieties from these large collections. In 

 most cases the specimens on exhibition average one- 

 third larger in size than the main crop, in this way 

 misleading persons not very familiar with fruits. In 

 our own case, if we had confined our selection to 

 five good varieties, instead of fifty, we should be 

 several thousand dollars better off to-day, and have 

 besides a uniformity in the appearance of the trees 

 of our first plantings. In another instance that has 

 come under my observation, the proprietor of an 

 orchard of fifteen hundred trees informed me that it 

 had made a difference in his receipts of three thou- 

 sand dollars in ten years. 



At the request of different persons he was per- 

 suaded to set out ten trees of one kind, fifteen of 

 another, five more of something new and choice, and 

 twenty of another sort. So he kept on, until when 

 the fifteen hundred trees were in place, he had over 

 fifty varieties. As the trees came into bearing, 

 many of the sorts proved to be nearly worthless for 

 market purposes. Having so many varieties, only a 



