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The men who selected the New England Seven did a good job of selecting 

 varieties. TXjo of these varieties, Delicious and Mcintosh are the leading 

 ones today. Delicious is first in production and popularity and Mcintosh 

 is first in New England and second in the United States, Baldwin, Rhode 

 Island Greening and Wealthy are no longer being planted. Red Gravenstein 

 and Northern Spy are being planted in a limited way. Cortland, an important 

 variety today, was introduced later and its real value to the industry is 

 as a pollinizer for Mcintosh and Delicious. Today the list of varieties 

 could be called the New England Three which include Mcintosh, Red Delicious 

 and Cortland. 



There is some interest today in planting the new early varieties such 

 as Puritan, Fenton, liantet, Red Crimson Beauty and Red Melba, especially 

 for roadside stand operators. These early varieties will help to prolong 

 the marketing period for apples. 



There is a real need for a winter variety to partly replace Mcintosh 

 but at present none of the new varieties appear to be good enough. 



The promotion of the better variety campaign which was started in 1926 

 was quite an undertaking. There were 463 growers in eight counties entered 

 in the program which shows how interested the growers were in this project. 

 In order to promote this better variety program a top grafting contest was 

 started the same year. Three prizes were offered in each of two classes 

 based on the number of trees of odd varieties to be worked over in an 

 individual orchard. The report shows that 35 hundred trees were top grafted 

 the first year of the contest in New Hampshire. The first prize of 50 

 certified apple trees was won by A. D. Rowe of Stratham. The second prize 

 by Miles Watson of Newington and the third prize went to J. T. Moore of Boscawen. 

 The report also stated that 35 thousand trees were top grafted to better 

 varieties in New England and the majority of the trees were grafted over 

 to the Mcintosh variety. There is still evidence of this top grafting 

 contest in many of the old orchards in the state and many of these trees 

 have contributed to the welfare of the industry. 



POLLINATION 



The reduction in the number of varieties grown brought out the importance of 

 cross-pollination in obtaining a set of fruit. The value of cross-pollination on 

 certain varieties was not recognized in 1927 . There were always suitable variet- 

 ies for pollination in all orchards where so many were grown. The removal of 

 all of the odd varieties and the planting of solid blocks of one variety created 

 a pollination problem, especially with self-sterile varieties such as Mcintosh, 

 Delicious, Gravenstein and Northern Spy. The experimental work on pollination 

 of apples at the New Hampshire University by Dr. L. P. Latimer from 1927 to 

 1933 was the first work to show the value of such varieties as Red Delicious, 

 Wealthy and Wagener as pollinizers for Mcintosh and the necessity of inter- 

 planting these varieties if good crops were to be produced. Soon after the 

 establishment of the importance of cross-pollination the interplanting of vari- 

 eties in new plantings became a standard practice. 



E. J. Rasmussen 



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