142 ^ STATE HORTICULTURAL SOOIETY. 



given to trees, ami they must be dressed aud kept by helping nature 

 in her very interesting work. 



The wind waving the young trees is a very great help in strength- 

 ening them for their greater age. The one greater mistake than all 

 others is that shrubs only can stand the western winds. Nurserymen, 

 of all others, should know that trees of proper shape stand the prai- 

 rie winds better, even when fruiting, than those cut back and thrown 

 out of proper shape, and thereby made weak and worthless. Close 

 observation for many years fully enables me to speak understandingly 

 and without any fear of successful contradiction. Therefore, it is ex- 

 ceedingly important that a very necessary change from shrubs to 

 " trees" for the orchards for the future in the Mississippi valley be 

 inaugurated before the close of the Nineteenth century. 



DISCUSSION. 



N. F. Murray — I will state ray experience in Holt county. We 

 have had this same question as to the height of trees for 25 years. 

 Some of the old orchards did grow and make large trees with high 

 heads. Some of these trees are living yet. Hence some people advo- 

 cate high trees. In our county the men who try to grow these high 

 trees are not selling any fruit. J. R. Miller has 500 trees with limbs 

 one to two feet above the ground. In 1890 he refused the price they 

 offered him and got the highest price for his fruit. This last year he 

 got as much as any man in the county. In another neighborhood a 

 man with an orchard with tops five to six feet high has never sold $25 

 worth of fruit. The most persistent man in growing high tops in our 

 county is now going back to low tops. He now says, ''give us the low 

 tops. They are the trees that bear fruit." I would not give a pound 

 of success for a ton of theory. 



Mr. Hartzell — I would refer to two orchards in Platte county as 

 evidence for high trees. Mr. Murray grows trees. He don't grow 

 shrubs. I have seen trees not higher than the weeds in same field. It 

 is a mistake to grow trees so low we can't get under them. We want 

 the limbs high enough to walk under good. I am talking for the good 

 of the.fruit man. I have no trees to sell. 



J. W. Green — Let us make a little calculation. The limbs of a 

 tree will droop two or three feet when full of fruit. If the man is six 

 feet high his trees must be eight or nine feet to keep the branches high 

 enough for him to walk under. I want to call your attention to an or- 

 chard here in this county. It is the best orchard and the most profit- 

 able in the county. The trees are sixteen feet apart and the limbs 

 come clear to the ground. It bears the finest fruit I know. 



