122 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



know of, but sweet. It is an enormous bearer, and worth 

 cultivating for the sake of feeding the apples to stock, if you 

 could not sell them ; but the last few years, I have had no 

 difficulty in selling all I could raise. These cases seem to 

 upset, in my mind, this dry weather theory, in relation to the 

 destruction of the apple crop. 



I must confess that I do not know, I cannot imagine, why 

 the crop has been a failure. I have no idea of the cause. I 

 have observed as closely as I could, and I have tried to find out, 

 for my own gratification and for the benefit of others, if I could, 

 but I have come to no conclusion in relation to the matter 

 which is at all satisfactory to me, or can be to anybody else. 



A Member. Were not those trees shaded ? 



Mr. Clement. They were pretty well shaded. The Hub- 

 bardston is a tree which is inclined to spread, not an upright 

 grower, like the Northern Spy, but it branches low, and inclines 

 downward. The branches of the tree shade its own roots to a 

 considerable extent, more so, perhaps, than some other varie- 

 ties ; but I should not think that was enough to make any 

 material difference ; I should not judge it would. 



Mr. Hyde suggested that the apple required, perhaps, more 

 moisture than the pear. That may be true. It is possible that 

 it does require more moisture, but still, I am not able to say 

 that distinctly. It is pretty well known that the apple strikes 

 its roots near the surface. It does not penetrate the earth so 

 deeply as the pear. I believe everybody who has had any 

 experience will acknowledge that as a fact. Consequently, in a 

 dry time, the roots of the apple tree must necessarily be very 

 much sooner affected than the roots of the pear. This very 

 Hubbardston tree to which I have alluded belongs to a variety 

 whose roots almost always strike out very near the surface. I 

 think I alluded last year, at Salem, to the difference in rooting 

 of different trees, and stated that I had noticed this difference 

 in the nursery, when I have been growing trees. When the 

 trees have been growing three or four years, I find there is a 

 vast difference in the roots. The roots of the Blue Pearmain, 

 for instance, strike downward, and root strongly. Sometimes 

 it is rather difficult to get it up with good roots. That is my 

 experience. The Hubbardston may be in the next row, in soil 

 just precisely the same, as near as you could imagine, will 



