REPORTS. 



REPORT ON APPLES. 



COM3IITTEE. — William T. Harlow, Chairman ; James F. Allen, Sam- 

 uel H. Colton, Samuel A. Knox, J. K. L. Pickford, of Worcester ; Cyrus 

 White, Henry Marble, of. Millbury; and Isaac B. Hartwell, of Oxford. 



The apple crop last year (1872) in New England was unusually large — 

 larger than any previous one for a decade, and that of the present (1873) 

 is comparative!}' small. The report of your Committee on Apples last 

 3'ear, speculating upon the probable causes of the large crop of that year, 

 gave a prominent place to the fact that it was the even or bearing year for 

 grafted apples The alternation of larger crops in the even, with smaller 

 ones in the odd years of our era, universally recognized in the case of the 

 Baldwin, was pointed out to be equally true of all varieties. The small 

 crop of the present year is in accordance with this alternation, and was to 

 have been expected. 



Considering the smallness of the crop, our exhibition of apples this year 

 exceeded expectations. Though inferior to the great exhibition of last 

 year, it was more than an average as compared with exhibitions of the 

 last ten years. The apparent success of an exhibition depends more upon 

 the efforts of exhibitors than upon the crop. Probably there has never 

 been during the thirty-three years of this Society's existence so small a crop 

 of apples in the County of Worcester but that persistent effort would have 

 found sufficient material for a creditable exhibition. Not that there was 

 any extraordinary effort made this year to render the exhibition a success. 

 With a single exception, only the usual premiums for apples were offered, 

 and these were advertised only in the usual manner. And the entries 

 were made by the usual exhibitors — mostly members of the Society living 

 in the City of Worcester. 



