FRUIT DEPARTMENT 
Note I. Those sorts with a star prefixed are of recent origin or introduction and 
usually classed as New, Ironclad and Russian varieties. 
Note 2. Habit of growth is indicated by Mod., Free, Vig., Slow, at end of descrip- 
tion, meaning Moderate, Free, Vigorous, or Slow growers. 
Note 3 The season of ripening given after habit of growth embraces that portion of 
the country between parallels thirty-nine and forty. This takes in Dayton, Ohio, Indian- 
apolis, Indiana, Springfield, Illinois, Kansas City, Missouri, and Topeka, Kansas. The 
season of ripening will be earlier or later in proceeding South or North. 
Note 4. Directions for spraying will be found in the last pages of this catalogue. 
APPLES. 
A Michigan fruit grower truly says of the apple: “There is no fruit grown that is so 
staple as the apple; no fruit that can so nearly be distributed to the four quarters of the 
world, in its natural state, with so little expense of packing or in so economical a package 
and there is no fruit that will receive the uninterrupted demand for so long a season.’’ 
The foreign demand for our commercial apples is so rapidly increasing and the home 
consumption so great over this vast domain that the theory of over-production must crumble 
and give way to the real fact that the production can hardly be so great but that remuner- 
ative prices will always be obtained, and since there are seasons in which partial failures will 
occur in some portions of the country, which is frequently the case, the fruit grower will 
then be far in advance, in dollars and cents of the ordinary tiller of the ground. 
We might mention a few instances where almost fabulous prices were received for apple 
orchards. In the year 1897 there were partial failures in most of the Eastern portions of 
the country, while good crops were realized from many Western orchards. One fruit grow- 
er near Weston, Mo., who had an orchard of one hundred acres, sold the fruit in the orchard 
for $16,400, and the purchaser paid all the expenses of picking and packing. Another or- 
chard of forty acres in Doniphan county, Kansas, the fruit alone sold for $1.50 per barrel, 
and it yielded about 5,000 barrels, and in many other instances that season the fruit alone in 
orchards sold for more than the whole farm was worth without the orchard, so that it can 
readily be seen that it is the commercial fruit grower who is taking in the money, far exceed- 
ing that obtained by the ordinary farmer. 
