SECRETARY'S REPORT. 



L, A. Goodman. 



Another six months of cold and heat, rain and shine, snow and 

 "hail, drouth and floods, frost and sunshine, light and darkness, has 

 passed, and we are still working away in our old road in and out, mak- 

 ing a well-beaten road instead of the old ruts we used to make by fol- 

 lowing directly in one another's track. There never was a time when 

 fruit-growers were working on independent lines more than now; 

 €very one seems to be studying out something new, or rather watching 

 nature and finding out somethiog new in their several departments. 



It is this continual experimenting, persistent testing, the results 

 of which we everywhere see in our State, that is causing people to look 

 to our fruit men for information in this regard. 



The result of the warm winter and the cold blizzard of January 

 2othand the still later one of March 25th, and last of all, May 18th, you 

 all know. The fruit-trees never went into winter quarters better than 

 they did last fall, and the hope of the fruit man was bright, and as the 

 future seemed bright, the nurseryman also felt the impulse, and a 

 bright market seemed to open for his surplus stock. 



The peach crop was all killed on the first mentioned day, January 

 25th, and other fruits injured more or less. We seemed to recover 

 from this blow and adapt ourselves to the circumstances, just as all 

 Americans do in such cases, when two months later the rest of our 

 hopes seem to have had a severe shock, and for a time we were fear- 

 ful that all the rest of the fruit was gone. But after recovery from the 

 scare and damage done, we find that there will be plenty of truit of 

 many kinds. 



The apple, which is the great fruit for our State, will be a very fair 

 crop indeed, taking the State as a whole. While there are many young 

 orchards of 7 or 8 or 9 years that have not the crop that we would 

 like to see them have, or that they could well have, yet we find the 

 older ones holding, in many places, all that they should have. In fact, 



