New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 339 
that some plants of widely different species have similar needs 
and that now and then several crops may grow equally well on a 
farm in association or in a rotation. What is true of the adapta- 
tions of species is to a lesser degree true of varieties and these 
have their likes and dislikes of environment which may be quite 
different for any two varieties; or, for some one sort may be quite 
opposed to those of the species as a whole. Thus one variety of 
a crop may and often does grow in a region almost to the exclusion 
of all others; as the Concord grape, the Baldwin apple and the 
Bartlett pear in parts of New York. These adaptations are so 
marked that lists of plants and of their varieties can be made 
which thrive or do not thrive in any region. Such lists should 
be valuable guides in the selection of varieties. 
In a very general way it may be said that a variety is adapted 
to regions having about the same latitude. We do not usually 
expect that northern varieties will succeed in the South or South- 
west, nor the reverse. Thus New York apples are for most 
part of local or of New England origin. This adaptation to lati- 
tude seems to be caused by length of season rather than the degree 
of heat or cold. Some southern varieties, as the Ben Davis and 
the York Imperial and others, are as hardy as the great majority 
of the northern varieties, but the seasons in the North are not 
sufficiently long for the fruit to mature. On the other hand the 
King, Northern Spy, and most other northern sorts find the 
southern season too long and because of it quickly pass through 
maturity to decay. There are of course exceptions to this law of 
adaptability of varieties to regions of the same latitude, best known 
of which are some of the Russian varieties, as Red Astrachan, 
Yellow Transparent and Oldenburg, which succeed in both the 
North and the South. 
The New York apple grower is warranted in taking a very con- 
servative attitude in regard to all varieties from the South and 
Southwest. Among the many sorts grown commercially in the 
great apple region of the Southwest, the Ben Davis is the only 
one which is being grown by the commercial apple grower of New 
York and even this sort grows much better in the South. 
Another important fact to the fruit grower is that there are 
groups of apples the members of which have about the same degree 
