30 BULLETIN 140, U. S. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 



already shown the futility of trying to compete with the Middle 

 West in farm products for which the soil and field conditions of the 

 latter are superior. Hence New England farmers should welcome 

 such competition instead of regretting it, and meanwhile bend their 

 energies to producing and marketing the higher forms of products 

 for which their location gives them an advantage over any possible 

 competitors. The normal increase of the population of the United 

 States is sure to effect this development eventually, because the in- 

 creasing price of foodstuffs will make it necessary to use the many 

 kinds of soils for those crops only to which they are best, or at least 

 reasonably well, adapted. In the following chapter the development 

 of orchards on suitable soils, and the kinds of soil on which several 

 of the different varieties of apples, peaches, and pears may be ex- 

 pected to give the best, or at least good, results is treated in some 

 detail. 



In regard to the relative importance of the personal factor of the 

 orchardist himself, as compared with that of the adaptation of the 

 soil, it may be said that a man who strongly likes to grow apples may 

 grow very good ones in spite of adverse soil conditions, because he 

 makes all other conditions of growth favorable. Similarly he who 

 does not care for orcharding may not produce good apples, even 

 though his soil be excellent, because he is not imbued with the interest 

 in the subject which makes for success. Yet he who enjoys orchard- 

 ing is most successful when the soil factor, as well as the other fac- 

 tors necessary for success, receives due consideration, and only those 

 varieties are planted on any given soil which that soil is best adapted 

 to produce. 



A " stony " loam is often recommended as a desirable fruit soil. 

 In fact it is one of the assertions most commonly heard in this con- 

 nection. Many growers think there is virtue in stones for increasing 

 or enhancing the value of a given soil for apple production. If a 

 soil is too heavy (clayey) or too impervious it is made more pervious 

 by stones, but in this case their effect is only that of an antidote to 

 soil conditions otherwise undesirable. It is an easy matter, further- 

 more, to select soils free from stones, or practically so, that are 

 equally pervious and desirable or even more so, and such soils would 

 have an additional virtue in that they could be cultivated more 

 cheaply. Any benefit from the disintegration and decomposition of 

 the stones during the lifetime of an individual is certainly negligible. 

 Hence, while stones may be advantageous in loosening a clay soil 

 somewhat, just as they are disadvantageous to a porous sandy soil 

 by lowering its moisture-holding capacity, they should not be con- 

 sidered, except as above indicated, a desirable attribute of soils to 

 be planted in orchard. Much of the current belief that " stony " 



