VI 

 THE VARIOUS FRUITS 



The apple is easily the king of fruits. It is grown 

 more widely than any other, there are more varie- 

 ties, it covers a longer season, and it is used in a 

 greater variety of ways. It is the fruit most exten- 

 sively cultivated for market.* 



In the selection of varieties for planting very 

 careful attention should be given to questions of 

 local adaptation — questions which have been sadly 

 overlooked in recent years in America. Too much 

 attention is paid to universal favorites, like Baldwin 

 and Ben Davis, and not enough to those which suc- 

 ceed splendidly only in restricted neighborhoods, 

 like Roman Stem, Jeffris and Palmer Greening. 

 Moreover, in planting a home garden the principles 

 of selection should be altogether different from 

 those governing the choice of varieties for a com- 

 mercial orchard. This distinction is often lost to 

 sight, though at many points the commercial re- 

 quirements are directly opposed to the demands of 

 the family orchard. In order to bring out and em- 

 phasize this difference it will be well to contrast 

 these principles of choice in the following table : 



*The bulk of recent American literature on apple growing 

 deals with commercial culture. Those interested in this line 

 should read The American Apple Orchard by F. A. Waugh, 

 and American Fruit Culturist by John J. Thomas. The pres- 

 ent work deals more with amateur fruit growing and presents 

 the matter in a more elementary form. 



