ii8 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



largely to meet a popular demand in the future, and avoid such 

 kinds as scald in storage, and are not attractive in appearance. 

 At present, the four great leaders now stored in large blocks in 

 a commercial way are the Baldwin, Ben Davis, Greening and 

 Spy. In the near future Gano will rival Ben Davis in a small 

 way commercially, and the Sutton may be a substitute for the 

 Baldwin, but is not likely to supplant it. It is better to plant 

 leading kinds to meet the public demand, and to grow the best 

 possible fruit of these kinds rather than to set a long list of 

 choice amateur varieties, and try to educate the public to use 

 them. Any kind not a leader is an annoyance in storage, and 

 will always bring less money in proportion to its quality than a 

 leader. 



Second. The selection of the proper soil, exposure and eleva- 

 tion for an apple orchard determines largely the future value of 

 its output for cold storage. An elevated site, with strong soil, 

 retentive of moisture and with good air drainage, will yield finn, 

 close-grained, high-colored fruit with well developed oily skin, 

 and such fruit will keep long and well in storage ; while fruit 

 grown in a mist-laden valley will be of a coarser, open texture, 

 and the moisture will cause the protective oil of the skin to be 

 destroyed by fungus growth. Such fruit will shrivel and decay 

 in cold storage, and such a site should be avoided. The aggre- 

 gate summer heat in a low-lying valley also forces fruit into ripe- 

 ness long in advance of the hill tops. In selecting fruit for 

 storage the nature of each individual season, whether wet or dry, 

 hot or cool, must be considered by the buyer. 



Third. Culture, fertilizing, spraying, pruning. — all these are 

 needed to produce apples best suited for cold storage. Culture 

 must be given perhaps by the newer way of mulching, or by the 

 more usual and approved mode of plowing and harrowing. 

 Fertilizing must be kept up in part by turning under cover crops, 

 and in part bv applying manures or chemical fertilizers, supply- 

 ing the elements needed to cause heavy yields of large, finely 

 colored, solid fruit. 



Spraying is of vital importance, as properly sprayed apples 

 will keep very much longer than fruit from the average farmer's 

 orchard. Beyond a question, within a very few years, at the 

 present rate of planting, apples from young commercial orchards 

 of leading varieties and thoroughly sprayed, will practically 



