536 REpPoRT OF THE HORTICULTURAL DEPARTMENT OF THE 
cherries. There are about thirty varieties of apples on the 
erounds of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station 
never injured by scab, as many more scarcely injured, and of 
course a large number that are badly injured. The Seckel, 
Kieffer, Le Conte and Winter Nellis pears do not blight badly. 
A few plums are never attacked by black-knot and some 
peaches are almost immune to peach curl. Now with these, 
and nearly all other pests, men who can not or will not spray, 
the general farmer and the city suburbanite, for example, 
should plant varieties measurably immune to the most trouble- 
some pests. 
Two thousand years ago Columelia wrote “The earth 
neither grows old nor wears out if it be dunged.” The truth is 
a general one and holds with fruits as with other plants. Few 
will gainsay the statement that if a fruit grower is to crop 
without crippling over a long period of years he must “ dung 
the earth.” Yet I do not believe that fruit crops require the 
addition of nearly as much fertilizer to the average soil in this 
State as do farm and truck crops. The basis for this state- 
ment comes from observation covering a number of years, the 
experience of many fruit growers, but more particularly from 
three experiments carried on at the New York Agricultural 
Experiment Station. I do not wish to discuss these experi- 
ments at this time but rather to set forth several theoretical 
considerations as to why fruits in general do not require the 
addition of as much plant food as farm crops. 
1. From eighty to ninety per ct. of a fruit crop is water; 
the food used in the foliage is returned to the soil. The per- 
centage of solid matter is much greater in farm crops. 
2. Trees have a preparatory season of several years before 
they begin bearing. Farm crops come and go in a season. 
5. The growing season for trees is long, from early spring 
to late fall. It is comparatively short for farm crops. 
4. The roots go down and spread out in the case of tree 
fruits but are comparatively restricted with farm crops. 
