SOME PROBLEMS CONFRONTING THE APPLE GROW- 

 ER OF TO-DAY. 



Lloyd S. Tenny, Hilton, New York. 



Mr. President and fruit Growers of Adams County: 



The great aim of the apple grower of to-day is the same as that 

 of most other lines of industry, namely, to make money. His prob- 

 lems, therefore, have to do with those things which make it impos- 

 sible or difficult for him to make his living. We may divide these 

 broadly into two classes; first those problems which have to do 

 with the size and character of his crop and in the second place, 

 those problems connected with the turning of his product into 

 money, namely the marketing problems. 



During the past years we have heard much about increasing the 

 productiveness of our orchards. Our experiment stations have de- 

 voted most of their time in studying orchard management and the 

 control of insect pests and plant diseases, or those phases of farm- 

 ing which tend to produce larger and better crops of fruit. It would 

 not do to say that too much time has been spent in studying these 

 phases of the subject but it is certainly true that too little attention 

 has been given to the other side of fruit growing, namely the 

 marketing problems. Even so there are certain problems still con- 

 fronting the grower which have not been solved to the satisfaction 

 of all. Of these I shall speak first. 



With regard to the young orchard, there is still the problem 

 of varieties. This is one, however, that has been cleared up con- 

 siderably in very recent years. A few years ago, there was a feel- 

 ing on the part of many of our best growers that it was better to 

 try some new varieties and what these should be was a real problem. 

 This idea fortunately has been pretty generally done away with 

 and now we recognize that the safest rule to follow in selecting 

 varieties for a new orchard is to choose only those varieties which 

 have been well tested out for the section in which we wish to plant. 

 This does not mean of course that one should never try out new 

 varieties, but these untried ones should be set with the idea that 

 it is an experimental orchard and should not be selected for large 

 commercial orchards. So we fruit men in Western New York 

 have gone back to planting such varieties as the Baldwin, the 

 Rhode Island Greening, the Northern Spy and others of these old- 

 time varieties. We know what these will do under our soil con- 

 ditions and with our orchard management. Many other varieties 

 will do well under different conditions but it is still a question 

 whether they will do as well with us as they do in other places and 

 it is a pretty safe rule to follow to plant only those varieties which 

 cannot be surpassed by the growers in another section. 



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