STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 137 



quis River and about fift}' feet above it. Departing from the river 

 on either hand, many of the best apple orchards are found from two 

 to four miles awa}^ and two to four hundred feet of altitude above. 



Several of your questions ma}' be found answered directly or 

 otherwise in what I may say from observation concerning the Bald- 

 win apple. I know of no apple so changed and so variable through 

 conditions apparent or not, as this. This fact has all the way been 

 so observable that many people now believe that there are several 

 distinct Baldwins — a family of them — and are spoken as the red or 

 the yellow. It is grown in small quantity here but can hardly be 

 called successfully. More than thirty years ago a friend in Med- 

 ford, Mass., knowing my then zeal in obtaining good fruit, sent me 

 a barrel of Baldwin apples to show that he had a tree producing the 

 best fruit known under that name. I went to that tree for the pur- 

 pose of taking scions, and found it standing on the outer edge of an 

 embankment of the old Middlesex canal — then abandoned and the 

 water withdrawn. I saw that its superior location could fully ac- 

 count for its reputation. The drainage was perfect. The old surface 

 soil long covered b}' the mixed earth of the embankment, all together 

 within easy reach and bearing very little of other vegetation, pre- 

 sented plant food in excess of demand. I took scions and set them 

 in my nurser\'. Near that time, Mr. S. L. Goodale made his first 

 visit to my place and there made the remark, in his forcible manner, 

 that I had the best soil for a nursery he had ever seen. Now for 

 results. My nursery had the best of care, but not a Baldwin ever 

 came to condition to be placed in the orchard. 



Large numbers of well-grown Baldwin trees were brought here 

 from Massachusetts and other States many j^ears ago and they very 

 rarely lived to produce fruit. Some trees in the older orchards upon 

 the hills have had their tops changed to Baldwins — I have done 

 some of it myself — and some of these still live, but yield a fruit that 

 would be passed as inferior at Hallowell. I consider this variety to 

 be estopped by climatic influences alone, at or a little below the 45 

 degrees of latitude. Climate undoubtedly here affects fruit much 

 more than soil. Unfavorable soil maj' be considered as confined to 

 the narrow limits of stiff cla}'. 



You ask for our leading varieties. I cannot answer. We have 

 people here who are able to exhibit thirt}' or fort}- varieties from a 

 not very large orchard. I could do it myself. The late tendency 

 is towards the introduction of the claimed '■'iron-clads" or extra 



