Massachusetts AjriciHttral College, 



AMHERST. MASS. 



massachusetts 

 Agricultural Experiment Station 



BULLETIN No. 208 APRIL, 1922 



Leaf Characters of Apple 

 Varieties 



By J. K. SHAW 



Not the least of the problems with which orchardists must 

 contend is that of nursery stock sometimes failing to come 

 true to the name under which it is sold. In the majority 

 of cases, probably, this difficulty has been due to error in the 

 nursery rather than deliberate misstatement on the part of 

 the seller of the planting stock. This bulletin reports the 

 results of seven years' work in attempting to establish a 

 basis on which trees can be identified previous to fruiting. 

 In this work the leaves are used as the taxonomic character. 

 In future work it is expected to continue the study with ref- 

 erence to tree form, appearance of bark, and growth habits. 



Requests for Bulletins should be addressed to the 



AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION 



AMHERST, MASS. 



