ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 5 7 



Now our grandfathers did not have any trouble about grow- 

 ing good crops of fruit. Why did they not have trouble? 

 They grew it, and they got it, and they did not have so much 

 trouble from many sources as we do. New ground, you say? 

 Well, I think we should do the same thing if we can. I think 

 we should select a field for new orchards, as I said before, with 

 as much humus in it as possible or decaying vegetable matter. 

 New land is best. We want to select land that has got humus 

 in the soil and it is more often that we find that on new land. 

 When you find it on old land, if the land has been cropped, it 

 has been put in in some way. On land that has not been used 

 and where the vegetable matter has had a chance to decay and 

 accumulate, that will make the best for orchard purposes. You 

 sometimes have taken up an old crooked rail fence. Maybe 

 it has been down fifty years, and when you plowed it up and 

 put in the crop, you found it was some of the best land you 

 had. It is the same principle, the action of bacteria working 

 there. The land has rested, it has been kept in a condition 

 where the bacteria had a chance to work, and it has been kept 

 going. New land is best, but if you cannot get that it is a 

 good plan to put on a seeding of clover, timothy and redtop, 

 equal parts, so as to get it in the next best condition. 



Now in selecting varieties, it all depends upon your market. 

 If you have got a good local market you want some fall and 

 winter varieties, and particularly you want some good early fall 

 apples. I will mention a few that I have found best. The first 

 that I should take is the red Astrachan, and the Gravenstein. 

 That was mentioned as doing well in Nova Scotia. We can 

 do just as well with it as they do. It is one of the best apples 

 we can grow. And then the Mcintosh. If you can grow some 

 good Mcintosh apples you are all right as to market. The 

 Northern Spy also, and your Baldwin, and the Sutton, and the 

 Rhode Island Greening, those are about the best four for winter 

 apples that I know of. I have not seen anything that beats 

 them much. So much for the varieties. 



I should advise placing the rows all of 38 feet apart and put- 

 ting the trees from 28 to 36 feet in the rows. I think it is a 

 good plan to vary the distances in the row so as to break the 

 force of the wind. Then I would try and select the best places 

 in the rows for the trees ; to take the best places or the best 



