SELECTING VARIETIES OF FRUIT. 19 
in quality, and which ones keep the longest. It is not 
necessary that experienced orchardists live in the neigh- 
borhood in order that this information may be secured. 
Select several of the most promising varieties grown by 
the neighbors, and as an additional guide write to the 
leading dealers of the market to which you will ship, 
asking what ones of your list will best meet the demand 
in the market. Experienced dealers’ judgments are in- 
valuable in this matter, but they do not, of course, cover 
the subjects of hardiness and productiveness. What 
dealers can sell best is not always what growers can raise 
best. Some apples are nearly cosmopolitan. Such, for 
instance, is the Baldwin, which is a superior variety from 
Maine to Michigan. 
The varieties once deGided upon, plant enoxgh of each 
variety to pay for the handling and hauling. Fifty bar- 
rels of Gravensteins are worth as much as seventy-five 
barrels of mixed apples of similar size. Plant each vari- 
ety by itself. It is a most exasperating operation to be 
obliged to pick Baldwins first in one corner of the orchard 
and then in another. An orchard of five hundred trees, 
if set fur profit, should not contain more than five or six 
varieties, ond, on an average, four of them should be 
winter apples. Three varieties are preferable to ten. I 
recall a story of a prominent pomologist, who, when 
asked what varieties he would plant in an apple orchard 
of one thousand trees, replied, ‘‘Nine hundred and 
ninety-nine Baldwins.” When asked what the other 
tree would be, he replied, ‘‘I should make that a Bald- 
win, too.” . 
Hardiness is preéminently a relative term. The same 
