PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS* CONVENTION!. 



29 



plant, both through their own observation and extensive consultation 

 with successful orchardists. 



There is no feature of commercial apple orcharding that should be 

 given more serious consideration than the selection of the permanent 

 varieties. 



One of the most prominent features in these orchards that have been 

 under consideration in this paper was their tendency to produce large 

 crops of fruit. In many of them there were almost as many different 

 varieties as there were individual trees. Still the full-bearing habit was 

 universal. Out of this infinity of varieties came two that were para- 

 mount to all others, the White Winter Pearmain and the Yellow Belle- 

 lieur. These, in common with the others, produced good full crops of 

 fruit, and the fruit possessed a good market value. Close observers soon 

 commenced to realize that these varieties could be grown at a profit, and 

 with a view to enhancing these profits commenced to plant out orchards 

 composed entirely of one or the other of these two varieties, especially 

 was this so of the White Winter Pearmain. 



Thus commenced what may be considered the second period of apple 

 orcharding in that region. The young trees in these orchards grew 

 with all the customary vigor of the White Winter Pearmain. but they 

 failed to set a crop of fruit. Season after season, when the Pearmain 

 trees in the older orchards of mixed varieties were breaking down under 

 their load of fruit, the younger orchards set in solid blocks of one 

 variety were not producing a box to the tree. 



I have in mind a number of these orchards and their owners, with 

 both of which I was intimately acquainted at that time. Without tak- 

 ing up your time in going into details. I will state that these conditions 

 brought those who were vitally interested in this matter face to face 

 with the question of cross-pollination and its bearing upon the produc- 

 tion of fruit in commercial apple orchards. 



The many influences that enter into the normal failure of the fruit 

 blossoms to set. such as heavy wood growth in the young trees, the 

 attack of insects and fungi on the blossoms, frost, rain, and other unfa- 

 vorable weather during blooming season were all given careful consid- 

 eration during the investigation that was made of this problem by a 

 numbers of the leading apple growers of that section. Many arguments, 

 many of them very ingenious, were made pro and con as to the value or 

 even the desirability of cross-pollination. It was. however, clearly re - 

 oirnized that self -sterility is not a constant character with any variety. 

 The same variety may be self -sterile in one place and nearly self -fertile 

 in another. The adaptation of a variety to soil and climate has much to 

 do with its self -fertility. It would be fallacious to attempt to separate 

 apple trees into two definite classes, the self -fertile and the self -sterile. 

 All this goes to show that the problem is as much a study of conditions 

 as of varieties, and that we can never be perfectly sure that any variety 

 will be self -fertile in a new region. Planting for cross-pollination pur- 

 poses as a matter of insurance in fruit production is now becoming a 

 general orchard practice. 



The practical bearing of the problem is this. There are certain varie- 

 ties of apples that, due to their profitableness, we wish to grow largely 

 for the general market, but we find that they can not be depended upon 

 to produce full crops when planted alone. They need the pollen of 



