198 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Massachusetts now number less than three hundred acres. Allow- 

 ing forty trees to the acre and an average crop of two barrels per 

 tree the number of barrels of really good apples produced in the 

 state will be less than 25,000, while we have a population of almost 

 3,000,000 people capable of consuming one barrel per capita. You 

 will see from these statistics what a small proportion of the apples 

 consumed are really grown here. These figures do not include the 

 large quantities of very poor fruit which are put upon the market 

 and are taken up at very low prices, hardly paying transportation 

 charges. 



Our nearness to good markets is both a benefit and a detriment 

 to us for where a distributing point is accessible there is a tendency 

 to market all of our product, whereas if we had to ship our fruit 

 long distances it would not pay to send anything but the best, while 

 inferior grades would naturally find their way to the evaporator 

 or the cider mill. The apples received here from the West is a 

 good example of this. 



The decline of orcharding in Massachusetts is due not alone to 

 the neglect of the trees by their owners but also to the repeated 

 ravages of the many insect pests. Of these pests probably the 

 worst is the San Jose scale which from the nature of its attack 

 renders itself less liable to discovery than any other insect. All 

 kinds of fruit trees are attacked by it and generally the damage is 

 done before the cause is known. While the state is making prog- 

 ress toward the suppression of the gypsy and brown-tail moth, 

 practically nothing is being done in the direction of checking the 

 spread of the San Jose scale. We have a fairly good law on the 

 statute books regarding this matter, but the law is inoperative where 

 persons do not know the scale, and it seems reasonable to ask that 

 the law which regulates the g}'psy and brown-tail moth should 

 include the San Jose scale. What we need is a vigorous campaign 

 of education in relation to insects and fruit; a campaign that will 

 carry insect knowledge into every school and home in the state, 

 and make the people see that it is for their benefit to keep down 

 these various annoying and destructive pests. 



Yet, with conditions as outwardly discouraging as they appear, 

 we have much in the fruit outlook to give us optimism. We have 

 soils wonderfully adapted to the growing of fruit, suitable climate 



