32 STATE HORTICUL.TURAL SOCIETY. 



and producing some fruit. The moral is plain. Having planted sound 

 stock and good varieties in proper soil, our work is just well begun and 

 must be followed by cultivation, fertilizing, and pruning of the most 

 intensive kind. The day is past and gone for successful apple-growing 

 by letting the trees take care of themselves. Life is too short and com- 

 petition too sharp to even hope to succeed by any practice which omits 

 or neglects any one of these important points. 



It would seem that these remarks were in these days almost needless; 

 yet three of my neighbors, last spring, set peach and apple trees in their 

 wheatfields. About five per cent, of them died before the wheat was har- 

 vested, and many more of them since. 



Pruning should begin before the tree is planted, and be continued every 

 year, thinning and shortening in so long as the branches crowd each other 

 or make too much growth. It requires a good deal of backbone to prune 

 properly, but no time or work in the orchard pays better for the labor. 

 This is no theory. 



And now, last but not least, spray thoroughly; and while you are spray- 

 ing, sometimes omit the "s, " and a kind Providence will enable us to live 

 over again the scenes of our childhood, with our cellars full of apples. 



THE FUTUKE APPLE ORCHARDS OF OCEANA COUNTY. 



BY BENTON GEBHART, OF HART. 



The topic of apple culture in Oceana county and western Michigan 

 calls forth our attention and needs more thorough investigation. In 

 this day and age of modern improvements and new inventions, it 

 becomes very necessary for us to seek improved methods in the line of 

 successful horticulture. New inventions, with their improved processes, 

 are incalculable in mechanical science, proper in agricultural pursuits, 

 and quite necessary in successful horticulture. With this thought in 

 view, I wish to fully impress in the minds of my fellow-fruitgrowers, 

 especially the apple-growers of Michigan, the need of beginning a new 

 era in apple culture, to advance upon a new line, with improved methods, 

 in the culture of this most reliable fruit. Come out from under the prac- 

 tice of years gone by, of profitable apple-culture with no cultivation for 

 the fruitful orchard, and of still planting the varieties which were in culti- 

 vation half a century ago, thinking they are yet valuable and able to pro- 

 duce abundant fruit for home use or market. 



The promising apple tree, with its beautiful crops of choice fruit, does 

 not flourish at the present day by standing in a stiff sod during a number 

 of years without receiving any cultivation, or, still worse, when the land 

 is seeded to some grain to take up all the moisture and fertility the soil 

 may contain. But it can be found where good and clean cultivation is 

 given each year, with good fertility and the best varieties. Given these 



