WINTER MEETING 1SS0. 27 



careful observer will note the rapidity of this change. The philologist and 

 scientist will study the forces at work, and give you the reasons therefor. The 

 skilled physician will carefully diagnose his case before he prescribes for the 

 same. In like manner should the careful horticulturist understand all the 

 wants of tree life before he may deal wisely with the tree itself. Close obser- 

 vation, careful watching, will be important factors in guiding him to action. 



The mysteries of plant growth, the knowledge of the combined forces that 

 propel it, have been (I am sorry to say it) a sealed book to a majority of the 

 farmers of our land. They plant and sow regardless of surroundings. Har- 

 vest or no harvest, it is the hand of Providence that has done it. If there is 

 a truth on God's footstool that needs to be inscribed upon the door posts of 

 every tiller of the soil, proclaimed from the house tops the whole length and 

 breadth of the land, it is the one that asserts the importance and necessity of 

 skilled, scientific labor in cultivation. The rules of trade, the law of supply 

 and demand, our individual identity, all demand of us thought; demand of us 

 to produce more, to produce better, and to produce cheaper than ever before. 



With these preliminaries let us consider our interests in horticulture, for we 

 are all more or less engaged in it or some of its branches. The apple orchard 

 first demands our attention ; are our trees as vigorous and healthy as we would 

 desire, as when we first planted them out, as in their early years of cultiva- 

 tion ; if any is so favored, he is one of the few who through a train of cir- 

 cumstances have been favored above the mass. We may assert without suc- 

 cessful contradiction that a majority of the apple orchards in this part of the 

 State are not what they should be; either in health, which means thrif tineas, 

 or in profit, which means fruit. 



What are their wants to restore them to these two essential conditions. To 

 determine clearly this important question will call for knowledge that but few 

 of the farmers of our land are in possession of. 



We of course have reference to botany or vegetable physiology, by which we 

 may know the forces which act upon matter in the inception and formation of 

 the tree, the relation that one member bears to the other to make a perfect 

 whole, and the wants of that whole to perpetuate life and profit. We need also 

 to be well versed in agricultural chemistry, that we may the better understand 

 the principle of assisting nature in restoring the wasted or absorbed elements 

 of plant growth. 



I have many times wondered why it was that so many of the farmers of the 

 State have shown such marked hostility to our Agricultural College, instituted 

 for the benefit of their sons, endowed free of cost to them, — the only institu- 

 tion within reach where these sons could be educated, combining both theory 

 and practice in all of the vocations of a farmers calling. I am glad to know 

 that these prejudices are dying out, and that this country is measurably free 

 from them. 



It has been an old saying that soil counted good wheat land is fully adapted 

 to the apple. This may be true in part and in part not true. Much depends 

 on the sub-stratum. The one plant is an annual, the other a centennarian or 

 more. The one feeds from the surface mostly, the other digs deep, and with 

 outstretched arms cries give. Both want light and heat with sufficient and 

 suitable nutriment. The grasping powers of the one are very contracted ; its 

 food must be brought nearly in contact with it, while the other in its long 

 reaches stands exposed to a lingering, slow death from many causes, often too 

 much water or hydrogen. Its roots are poisoned ; they no longer perform their 

 proper functions in reach for new substances on which to feed. Gradually but 



