FRUIT AS A FARM PRODUCT. 415 



the trees, and the feeding fibrous roots will be found cling- 

 ing to their sides. No crop will make a larger return in 

 proportion to the expense for fertilizers than the apple ; 

 it is a biennial crop, the trees taking each alternate year a 

 season of rest. If the land is kept under cultivation, very 

 little outlay for fertilizers will be required to produce fruit 

 of the best quality. In the early years of an orchard, before 

 the trees come into bearing, annual crops may be grown 

 that will pay the cost of cultivation and the fertilizers re- 

 quired, or, what will prove more profitable, in most places 

 any or all of the small fruits may be grown. 



If the apple trees are set thirty-five or forty feet apart, 

 rows of peach trees may be set both ways between, making 

 about three times as many of the latter as of the former. 

 It is true the peach has failed in this State almost invariably 

 for the last four years, but it is a crop too valuable, when it 

 is considered how quickly and easily it is grown, to be given 

 up. There is little doubt that the failure of the peach in 

 recent years is owing to the diseased and enfeebled condi- 

 tion of the trees, rather than to any changed condition of 

 soil or climate. So general is disease among the trees, that 

 it is not unusual to see young trees of one year's growth in 

 the nursery rows blighted with the yellows. While grow- 

 ers will gladly welcome any aid from the Experiment Sta- 

 tion or elsewhere in the effort to restore health and vigor to 

 the trees already under cultivation, it is an open question 

 whether a more direct remedy does not lie in an effort to 

 get a hardier class of trees through seedling varieties. One 

 grower the past season has competed at every exhibition of 

 the Massachusetts Horticultural Society when prizes were 

 offered for peaches, and at each exhibition showing several 

 dishes, and with one exception they have been seedling 

 fruit. He has a large number of trees of the kinds generally 

 grown which have produced no fruit, while his seedling trees 

 have produced fruit some of which in size and quality com- 

 pared favorably with our most popular, well-known vari- 

 eties. 



Some twenty years ago there was general alarm among 

 the farmers at the failure of the potato crop for several 

 successive years ; the loss amounted to thousands of dollars 



