18 HORTICULTURE, FORESTRY, FLORICULTURE 



vantage of not having enough of their product to make it worth while 

 to ship it. This difficulty can be overcome by starting the industry 

 on a scale large enough to insure that shipments can be made in 

 carload lots. 



Soils. The only safe way to determine the value of a soil for a 

 particular fruit is by actual trial. So many factors enter into the 

 determination of the character of a good fruit soil that it is easy to be 

 mistaken in judging of its adaptability for fruit, and yet the best 

 fruit soils have many points in common. There is hardly a soil that 

 will not be found adapted to some class of fruits if the conditions as 

 to drainage, exposure and fertility are favorable. For instance, the 

 pear prefers a rather heavy clay soil, the peach and cherry quite open 

 and porous soils. The strawberry and blackberry will often do well 

 on soil too sandy for other fruits. The currant and gooseberry prefer 

 an open clay loam, but will adapt themselves to almost any location. 

 Then there are locations so wondrously adapted to special fruits that 

 it seems impossible to raise them in equal perfection elsewhere. Such 

 are the lands adapted to the Albemarle Pippin in Virginia. 



The great variety of fruits grown within the limits of the United 

 States and the wide range in requirements for both soil and climate 

 exhibited by the different varieties of the various species of fruit-pro- 

 ducing plants render the characterization of any particular soil or of 

 any class or group of soils as special fruit soils impossible. In general 

 it may be stated that all soils to be well adapted to the production of 

 the majority of deciduous tree fruits must be characterized by good 

 natural drainage ; by level or rolling topography, not precipitous ; by 

 a considerable depth of surface soil and subsoil and by relative 

 freedom from large stone or bowlders which might interfere with 

 cultivation. When these inherent properties are present there are 

 necessary also certain conditions of protection or exposure, of altitude 

 and latitude, and of accessibility in order to render advisable the 

 selection of any particular field for extended fruit culture. 



The investigations of the Bureau of Soils, while not particularly 

 directed to the study of fruit soils, have shown that the ideal soil for 

 the production of a particular class of tree fruits, as apples, peaches, 

 pears, cherries, or plums, varies in different sections of the country. 

 Thus the typical apple soils of New England, New York, the Appa- 

 lachian belt, the Piedmont section, the prairie region of central 

 Illinois, the Ozark belt of Missouri and Arkansas possess in common 

 the characteristics of adequate soil drainage, reasonable porosity, and 

 sufficient ability to maintain moisture to insure against damage from 

 drought. In origin, in altitude, in texture, and in topographic distri- 

 bution they not only differ markedly, but there is every indication 

 that different varieties of apples in the same general fruit region are 

 not all equally suited to the same type of soils. 



^ A review of the genera! characteristics of soils upon which tree 

 fruits are produced in some of the best-known fruit districts, as re- 

 vealed by the surveys of the Bureau of Soils, shows that orchard fruits 

 in general require good natural drainage, a fairly friable soil and sub- 

 soil, and a sufficiently loamy soil or subsoil to retain a good moisture 



