ction
California
Watsonville district
Sebastopol apple district
Yucaipa section
Wisconsin
Minnesota

The varieties of the South and the North, and largely also of the West
and the East, are prevailingly different. Canada has a set of apples
quite its own. These differences are marked when one visits
exhibitions in the various regions. Let the visitor who is a good
judge of apples in Michigan and Ohio attempt to judge them in an
exhibition in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia, in the Province of
Quebec, in North Carolina, in Minnesota, in Oregon. He will be
impressed with the wonderful diversity, as well as the undeveloped
resources, of the continent.

Southward, apples do not keep well. There are no true winter apples in
the Southern States, outside mountain regions. A winter apple of the
North becomes a fall apple in the South. In fact, there are marked
differences in keeping quality within a single State. On gravelly
lands or warm slopes in the southern part of New York, the Northern
Spy may become practically a late autumn apple; in the northern parts
of the State it is a firm crisp all-winter keeper. In the winter
apple, the ripening process proceeds in storage. When the season is so
long that maturity is reached on the tree, the subsequent duration is
relatively short.

It is not to be inferred, however, that apples are to be grown only in
regions and soils naturally well adapted. Such adaptations should be
controlling in commercial plantations; but if man has dominion he
should be able to accomplish much in untoward or even in hostile
conditions. Even the city lot may be able to yield a harvest, if the
occupant of it is minded in fruits rather than in other things. Every
observant traveler has noted cases in which good results in the
rearing of plants and animals have been attained in places that no one
would choose for the purpose: the man has overcome his obstacles. I
was impressed with this fact in visiting a greenhouse in the Shetland
Islands. Cultivation has been carried far beyond the optimum regions.
The merit of the man's performance is measured in the excellence of
his result rather than in the quantity of it. The application of skill
is the highest test of ability in plant-growing, and this is often
expressed in the most difficult places.

Whatever may be the adaptability of any general territory to the
growing of apples in a large way, the probability is that a m