12 tfHE SUBURBANITE'S HANDBOOK 



Fourth We have the southern states, with Southern California, 

 which is unadapted to some varieties of dwarf trees while others 

 do well. 



Fifth, and Last We have a region where the dwarf fruit tree 

 garden requirements are met to perfection, namely, Puget Sound, 

 Western Washington and Western Oregon, a region unsurpassed and 

 unsurpassable in many ways, and where every suburbanite should 

 have his dwarf tree garden in full operation to its utmost capacity 

 and enjoy his own apples, apricots, nectarines, peaches, pears, plums, 

 figs, currants, gooseberries, strawberries and grapes. 



While thus dividing the United States into fruit sections, no 

 hard and fast rule can be made, and allowance must be made for 

 varying local conditions. 



It may be asked here : If dwarf fruit trees are so well adapted 

 to use in the United States and have been grown in Europe for 

 centuries, why have they not been introduced here ? They have been 

 frequently introduced and tried, but they were introduced and 

 worked under the European system of management that was not 

 adapted to American conditions. In fact, the introducers tried to 

 open an American lock with an European key that did not fit. Lat- 

 terly, however, several of the American Agricultural Experiment 

 Stations and some private experimenters have been investigating the 

 subject with good results, To illustrate what apparently trifling 

 errors in details may work injury to the fruit industry : When the 

 practice of training fruit on walls was introduced from England 

 (where it had been successfully practiced for centuries) it was dis- 

 covered that the trees were quickly killed with the heat. The mystery 

 was not solved for many years, when it was discovered that the diffi- 

 culty could be obviated by training the trees not against the walls, 

 but to trellises three inches from the wall and thus allowing all of the 

 hot air concentrated by the sun's rays against the wall to escape and 

 secure free ventilation. It is now a fully established fact that dwarf 

 trees can be as successfully produced in the United States as they 

 can in England or France, and the adaptability of these trees to sub- 

 urbanite 's use is freely admitted by experts. The question of their 

 suitability to the requirements of the commercial orchardist is still 

 an unsettled one and open to controversy, with strong arguments in 

 its favor. I will therefore treat the two questions separately, and 

 the reader may judge for himself. 



