24 New Hampshire Expeeiment Station [Bulletin 223 



iufis. About 15,000 New Hami^shire farms reported some fruit trees in 

 the United States census of 1920. Many of these have undoubtedly 

 pei'ished in the meantime; but the others, it will be remembered, still 

 contain a little o\-er 50 per cent of the total bearing trees of the state. 



The group of 100 or more men who have less than 100 bearing trees 

 ar(^ of i)articular interest because each has on the average more than 

 000 non-bearing trees in his orchard. They own nearh' 40 per cent of 

 ;tll the non-bearing commercial trees. Whether or not these men have 

 had experience with trees which will make them successful is difficult 

 to know. The size of their plantations indicates that they are in earnest 

 in the matter of becoming fruit growers; and unless hampered by in- 

 experience, lack of capital or insufficient determination to caiTy their 

 A^enture through, they will be a large factor in the future commercial 

 fruit industry of the state. 

 The owners of large fruit farms still have a considerable number of 

 non-bearing trees. It is hardly to be expected, however, that farms with 

 2,000 or more trees will make sufficient plantings to more than maintain 

 their present acreage. The group of large fruit farms will increase 

 rapidly; for many if not all of the men with large non-bearing planta- 

 tions will soon be included in the list of those having more than 500 

 bearing trees. 



GRADING AND MARKETING 



Some verj' interesting information in regard to practices used in 

 harvesting, grading and marketing New Hampshire fruit was obtained 

 in this survey. Table 8 shows the projtortion of the crop sold in each 

 of the usual grades based upon a sufficiently large number of barrels to 

 make the classification reasonably accurate. Apple grades in New 

 Hampshire are specified by law as Fancy, A, or B grade. In addition, 

 it is possible for the grower to sell fruit marked "unclassified". It is 

 common when this is done to take the apples as they come from the 

 trees, throwing out those under 2% inches in diameter or culls badly- 

 diseased or insect-stung. The tree-run grade, which would be marked 

 the same, technically should include all apples taken from the trees. 

 As a matter of fact, however, growers and buyers frequently speak of 

 the unclassified apples from which the culls have been removed as tree- 

 run. Apples which are not good enough to be included in the B grade 

 are sometimes marketed as "unclassified"'. In this survey these apples 

 are called "ungraded with the I's and 2's out." Only a small proportion 

 of New Hampshire apples are sold by this method, most of the apples 

 not good enough for B grade being sold as culls for manufacture into 

 cider or other bj'-products. 



A good deal of confusion as to the meaning of the terms of the 

 grading law and as to just what apples sho\dd be included in each grade 

 exists among the smaller growers and indeed among many of the bet- 

 ter growers of the state. It was evident in examining the records that 

 many apples had been reported as being sold as A grade when, as a 



