8 New Hampshire Experiment Station [Bulletin 223 



west of the commercial areas are successful. There is one large plan- 

 tation in the town of Campton in which the trees are doing well be- 

 cause they are planted on an especially advantageous site. There are 

 undoubtedly other similar favorable situations where the Baldwin and 

 other tender varieties could be grown. In Carroll County Baldwins 

 were formerly produced to a much greater extent than at present, and 

 (!ommercial plantings of this variety are found equally far north in 

 adjoining sections of the state of Maine. 



However, everything considered, it is probably good judgment on 

 the whole not to i)lant the more tender varieties of apples in Sullivan, 

 Grafton and Carroll counties. The extension of the orchard industry 

 using hardier sorts such as Mcintosh, Spy and Delicious would be en- 

 tirely practical provided that market demands warranted their plant- 

 ing. There is also a ])08sibility that in this territorj^, which is a vast 

 summer i-esort, early varieties of apjiles might be jtroduced for the 

 tourist and summer trade. In southern New Hampshire, which more 

 projierly constitutes New Hampshire's apple belt, there is ample room 

 for expansion of the industry in fields suitable for fruit production which 

 have not yet been planted. 



Some indication as to the trend of the industry may be gathered from 

 a consideration of the proportion of non-bearing trees in each county. 

 Strangely enough, the highest proportion of non-bearing trees is found 

 in Grafton and Sullivan ct)unties, two of the group in which orcliaiil- 

 ing is thought to be relatively imimportant. The explanation undoubt- 

 edly lies in the fact that, with a small number of ti'ees in the coimty, 

 one or two large new i)lantations form a relatively large part of the 

 lotal. This is also true in Cheshire County, where of the total 6,490 

 non-bearing trees nearly one-half are known to be in one orchard in 

 Walpole. But for the fact that this and another commercial orchard 

 have recently been planted, Cheshire County would show a relatively 

 low proportion of non-bearing trees. 



Among the three most important fruit-producing counties Merrimack 

 shows the lowest projjortion of non-bearing trees. Some large orchards 

 were planted in Merrimack County fifteen or twenty 3'ears ago, increa.s- 

 ing relativel}' the number of bearing trees. Within recent years there 

 has not been as much planting in that territory as in the orchard cen- 

 ters of Hillsborough and Rockingham County. 



Relative proportions of non-bearing trees in this commercial survey 

 and in the 1924 census are of interest. The average for the state in 

 the commercial survey is 33.3 per cent non-bearing. In the census, 28 

 per cent are reported as non-bearing, indicating that a larger proportion 

 of the trees in small farm orchards are old trees. In 1910 the census 

 showed only 17 per cent of non-bearing trees for the whole state. At 

 that time there were many trees in farm orchards and much less than 

 at present in commercial plantings. During the period just preceding 

 1920, active planting was begun in some of the more important orchard 

 districts. As a result, the 1919 census shows 24 per cent of non-bearing 



