245. Northern Spy Apple. One of 

 the best winter sorts for home use. 

 Large. Deeply splashed with red 



246. Esopus. Standard of quality. 

 One of the best winter apples. Medium 

 size. Bright red 



247. Gravenstein. If suited to local- 

 ity should be in home orchard. Large. 

 Yellow striped with red 



248. Lady Sweet. An excellent 

 winter sweet apple highly valued for 

 baKing. Good size, red color 



Quality Fruits for the Home Orchard— By s. w. Fletcher 



HOW TO SELECT VARIETIES OF HIGH FLAVOR INSTEAD OF COMMERCIAL KINDS IN WHICH 

 QUALITY IS ALWAYS A SMALL ITEM— ONE SUBJECT IN HORTICULTURE THAT WELL REPAYS STUDY 



Photographs by the author 



Cornell 

 University 



A MAN may choose an ideal site for his 

 orchard, prepare the land well, pur- 

 chase first-class trees, care for them intelli- 

 gently, and finally bring them into bearing, 

 only to find that the varieties are not those 

 that meet his needs. Perhaps, when select- 



249. Hyslop. One of the two best crab-apples for 

 home use. The other one is Transcendent 



ing varieties, he was guided by the well 

 meant, but frequently unreliable advice of the 

 tree agent or the nurseryman. Perhaps he 

 planted the varieties that grew on the old 

 home place and which tasted so good in his 

 boyhood days, forgetting that they might 

 not be so well adapted to the locality in 

 which the new home is situated. Perhaps he 

 studied the catalogues and picked out the 

 varieties which were described in the most 

 glowing terms — usually a fatal error. Per- 

 haps he did not himself know what sorts to 

 pick out, and so followed the advice of an 

 enthusiastic but not well-informed neighbor. 



Mistakes in the selection of varieties arise 

 in these and many other ways. The worst 

 of it is that most of these mistakes cannot be 

 remedied until after the trees have come 

 into bearing, and the unwisdom of the choice 

 is seen. The time and expense of caring for 

 the trees are lost, and what is of greater con- 

 sequence, the pleasures of a home orchard, 

 which had been so eagerly anticipated, are 

 delayed for several years. The undesirable 

 varieties may be grafted over into other sorts, 

 but it will take several years for grafted trees 

 to come into full bearing and they are seldom 

 quite as satisfactory as ungrafted trees. 



The choice of varieties should receive the 

 personal attention of every one about to plant. 

 Do not follow the advice of anybody without 



first looking into the matter yourself. No 

 one who is not familiar with the climate, 

 soil, site, and other conditions where the 

 orchard is to be planted, as well as under- 

 standing your personal preferences and pre- 

 judices about varieties, can advise you intelli- 

 gently. Above all other problems in home 

 fruit-growing, this is one which it will pay 

 the home-maker to investigate and decide. 



SELECT VARIETIES WHICH THRIVE IN 

 YOUR LOCALITY 



The most common mistake in the home 

 orchard is the planting of varieties which are 

 not adapted to the locality. Varieties of 

 fruits, like other plants, find some places con- 

 genial, some places tolerable, and other 

 places decidedly uncongenial. We find mul- 

 leins in dry, stony pastures, not in the swales. 

 Daises grow in meadows, not in copses. 

 Every kind of plant, like ever} - kind of animal, 

 finds some places and conditions better 

 suited to its needs than others. This is true 

 of varieties of fruits. While some varieties, 

 like the Baldwin apple, Crawford peach, 

 Bartlett pear, and Lombard plum, are able 

 to adapt themselves to a wide range of con- 

 ditions, most varieties have a restricted 

 habitat. Take this into consideration. 



The point is not what varieties can be 

 grown, but what varieties can be grown best. 

 Doubtless there are several hundreds of 

 varieties which can be grown with more or 

 less success in your particular locality. Of 

 this number, probably there are a few, fifteen 

 to twenty-five perhaps, that come to greater 

 perfection than the others. They seem to be 

 especially suited to that particular soil and 

 climate. Grow these and discard the others, 

 however tempting they mav be. It is far bet- 

 ter to have only a few varieties, all of which 

 grow to perfection than it is to have a large 

 number of varieties, many of which are but 

 indifferently successful. Disappointment 

 usually awaits the man who disregards the 

 fact that some varieties are better adapted 

 than others to, certain localities. 



Many times -the mistake is made of plant- 

 ing varieties which were favorites in earlier 

 years on the old homestead. The desire to 



183 



plant these is commendable. But if the new 

 location happens to be in another State, or 

 in a region having a climate very dissimilar 

 to that in which the old homestead was 

 located, this desire often leads him to serious 

 errors. Countless home orchards of the 

 West are disappointing because they were 

 planted with the varieties which were popular 

 in the old homes in the East, regardless of the 

 widely different conditions. There was some 

 excuse for this in the days when the subject 

 of variety adaption had not been studied and 

 especially in newly settled country, where 

 there were no previous fruits planted which 

 might serve as a guide. But to-day there is 

 no excuse for such mistakes. 



The man who is about to plant an orchard 

 should first of all inquire about the behavior 

 of different varieties in his locality. He 

 should visit his neighbors who have grown 

 fruit, and learn their experience and seek 

 their advice. If possible, he should visit 

 neighboring orchards during the fruit season 

 and compare the merits of different sorts; 

 remembering that a slight difference in soil 

 will sometimes make a great difference in the 

 success of a variety; and that if the fruit 

 of a tree that has not received proper care is 

 of poor qualit) r , the defect should be charged 

 against the man who neglected the tree. 

 The home fruit-grower will usually make a 

 more satisfactory choice of varieties if he is 

 thus guided by local experience than if he 

 seeks the advice of some expert pomologist, 

 who lives at a distance. However wide that 

 expert's general knowledge of variety adap- 

 tation, he cannot make allowances for the 

 minor variations of soil in a region. It is 

 always a good plan, however, to get the 

 advice of the horticulturist of your State 

 Experiment Station, or of others who have an 

 intimate knowledge of the horticulture of 

 your section; test his advice by your own 

 judgment and the neighborhood experience. 



BEWARE OF NOVELTIES 



It is amusing to look over the average 

 nurseryman's catalogue. It would seem to 

 the unsophisticated that all the varieties 

 which it would really pay to plant have 



