39o 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
stock rule somewhat better than last year and there is no 
surplus of good stock. In some of the leading items there 
will be a shortage for spring delivery. Exceptionally fine 
weather has been favorable for fall planting and tends to 
prolong the season. 
The New England Fruit Show, held in Horticultural 
Hall, Boston, October 19-24, has been instrumental in 
increasing the demand for fruit trees, especially apples. 
The Show was a great success and will, no doubt, give im¬ 
petus to fruit farming throughout New England. Nursery¬ 
men exhibiting trees at the Show were Messrs. J. G. Harri¬ 
son & Son, Berlin Maryland, The New England Nurseries, 
Inc., Bedford, Massachusetts and Mr. W. L. McKay, 
Geneva, N. Y. 
Prospects for spring delivery in.New England are very 
encouraging. Hortus. 
PENNSYLVANIA GROWERS OF ORNAMENTALS BUSY 
The demand for ornamental stock seems to be as great 
as ever, and there seems to be a scarcity of strictly good 
ornamental material. The early part of the fall found a 
shrinkage in the shipments of evergreens', due very largely 
to the dryest summer and fall we have had in twenty years 
but as the fall progressed, we had some few rains, putting 
the soil in better condition for planting, and business picked 
up. We are now getting carloads off every day, the greater 
part of these being of large deciduous trees and shrubs. 
We think that you will find all of the nurserymen in 
this section are well supplied with fall business. 
Yours truly, 
Chestnut Hill, Pa. Andorra Nurseries. 
HELP SCARCE IN INDIANA 
We are in the midst of our packing season and are very 
busy. We find it difficult to secure help enough to get our 
shipments out on time, as labor is very scarce here. We 
1 
have the largest retail business we have ever had, and indi¬ 
cations are for a heavy spring business. There is a very 
serious shortage in apple and peach. 
Bridgeport, Ind. C. M. Hobbs & Sons. 
FIFTEEN CENT COTTON IMPROVES OUTLOOK IN 
SOUTH 
We are now making our fall shipments. Agents’ sales 
have been all that we could ask and with 15c. cotton 
we are expecting fine collections. The Southern railroad 
which is our main line through the South seem determined 
to give us an improved service, moving shipments promptly. 
So far we have had an ideal fall for work, and as a whole we 
are right well pleased with existing conditions. 
Greensboro, N. C. John A. Young. 
WESTERN NEW YORK ALL RIGHT 
The chief matter of interest here in our nursery interests 
is the magnificent weather we are having for digging and 
getting stock into the cellars for winter storage. Right 
here I stop to “knock on wood’’ as we can stand a full 
month of the same favorable weather yet. 
I went down to “Boston Town”—-the New England 
Fruit Show—with business in my eye and to talk business to 
the New England Planter, and they gave me a large dose of 
it, for if ever a lot of men were in dead earnest about what 
they are going to do, the men I met there were. They have 
just made up their minds to plant apple trees, and lots of 
them; this is true of the man who lives on the farm and 
the business man in town who is feeling the call of the soil 
and the longing to own a little bit of this earth besides that 
part of it that is kept in safe deposit vaults. I met many 
such men, both in business and professional life, who 
either have recently acquired land intending to plant fruit 
or who are planning to do so in the near future. A young 
man employed in the banking house of Kidder, Peabody & 
Co., said to me “there are aboqt seventy men employed in 
our house, and fully half of them are looking forward some 
day to owning land on which eventually to retire, and are in 
most instances planning on fruit as a business proposition.” 
This condition of affairs is emphasizing the present short¬ 
age of stock of apple trees in the nurserymen’s hands, to an 
extent that we can hardly fully realize. And the worst of 
it is that they want—naturally—the varieties that are 
shortest—Baldwin, Spy, Greening, McIntosh and Graven- 
stein. This is the list they are calling for with probably 
Wealthy next in demand, and a good deal of interest shown 
in the Rome Beauty. It is my impression that next to 
Baldwin, McIntosh is in strongest demand of these varieties, 
probably the shortest in supply of any commercial variety 
today in proportion to the demand for it. I am fully con¬ 
vinced that if all these planters come anywhere near carry¬ 
ing out their present plans a very large part of them will 
have to fall back on one year old trees. 
Of course this great rush toward commercial planting 
is by no means confined to the New England states; the 
New York State farmer seems just as eager to take up the 
fight with the blight, scab, Blister Mite, Codling Moth, 
Scale, and general order of “bug,” as his neighbor from 
“down east.” And the New York State farmer also wants 
Baldwin, McIntosh, Spy and Greening, about in the order 
named. It looks as though we nurserymen who are not well 
fixed on these varieties would have “to take to the tall 
timber.” 
THE HEADING QUESTION 
I was a good deal interested in the questions asked me 
by two peach growers recently—“why is it you nursery¬ 
men head ;your peach trees way up there”, pointing to a 
handsome tree of about five feet in height, “while we 
planters want a head way down here,” indicating a height 
of about twelve or fifteen inches. I told him it was simply 
because the dear public wanted them “way up there”; 
the question naturally rises, however, whether possibly a 
little different handling of our peach blocks, less “trimming 
up” to get height, may not be a necessity of the near future, 
in order to meet the needs of the commercial grower, 
instead of almost forcing him to take the smaller sizes in 
order to get his head where he wants it. 
Among prospective planters I was asked the question 
probably twenty times, “Why can’t we get Beurre Bose 
pear trees? This fruit seems to grow to wonderful perfec¬ 
tion in many parts of the east, still I was told that the 
market has not been very favorable the past season. 
Geneva, N. Y. W. L. McKay. 
