REPORT OF STATE HORTICULTURIST. 59 



5. Insures better care of the orchard, hence better fruit and 

 more regular crops. 



6. Gives a communrty a greater prestige and stability. 

 Some of the disadvantages : 



1. Independent growers not in the Association, get many 

 of its benefits. 



2. Difificulty in keeping quality of the fruit of the Associa- 

 tion as high as that of the best independent grower. 



3. Spirit of jealousy and lack of confidence. 



It will be seen that the success depends largely upon the in- 

 dividual members ; if the spirit of mutual help is lacking, failure, 

 or at best, only partial success follows. 



Mr. Wilson Conant, President of the Oxford Bears Fruit 

 Growers' Association, in speaking before the agricultural class- 

 at the University said, "Never urge a man to join an associa- 

 tion ; if his judgment does not tell him that the proposition is 

 a sound one, he will not be worth having as a member." 



This seems to hit the nail on the head and if the organization 

 is formed w^ith that idea in view, there is little doubt as to its- 

 success. 



GREGORY CONTESTANTS. 



The contestants for the Gregory prize have been very back- 

 ward in sending in the returns from their acre of orchard this 

 season and a second set of report blanks had to be sent to a 

 great many of them. As a result any data that may be men- 

 tioned below has been compiled from an incomplete list and 

 may not be strictly accurate. It will give some idea, however, of 

 the principal points of interest in the reports, and be useful 

 until the full report is printed later. 



Each grower has done some pruning, mostly so as to form an 

 open top ; less than half have sprayed the trees and various ma- 

 terials have been used, arsenate of lead predominating as a sin- 

 gle material ; the number of applications where spraying was 

 done averaged about two times and show results in the insect 

 column ; nearly all either had a cultivated crop or practised 

 clean cultivation till the middle of the summer ; most used fer- 

 tilizer in some form, either barn yard manure or some commer- 

 cial grade. Corn, garden and potatoes were the favorite crops 

 planted in the orchard ; the number of trees reset averaged about 



