FORTY-THIRD ANNUAL REPORT. 59 



prices at Old Mission than the Duchess, and in addition have stronger 

 crotches, the fruit does not blow off as badly as the Duchess, and com- 

 ing when the weather is cooler do not scald on the ground if they do 

 fall off. 



Winter apples, pears, sweet cherries and currants seeni) to need a 

 heavier soil than sand; a good subsoil. I have tried a good many fruits 

 and vegetables in my garden near the house, a very frosty location. I 

 have found tree fruits do better than bush fruits as they root deeper. 

 Among vegetables, peas, and carrots and early potatoes are most easily 

 raised, the latter being fertilized liberally with potash. Most of the fer- 

 tility in my garden is supplied from the slops and ashes from the resi- 

 dence. In setting fruit trees I regard it as very important to put the 

 best top soil in bottom of the tree hole, and the barren subsoil last of all 

 in filling up the hole. 



About a dozen years ago having found that about 100 of my sour 

 cherries were not true to label, I started in to graft these Louis Phil- 

 lippe over into Montmorency and I have been at this job off and on ever 

 since. The sum of my experience is that it don't pay ; better pull out 

 an unprofitable variety of cherry as soon as discovered and set a bet- 

 ter one at once. A few of these grafted cherry trees have grown until 

 they are the full size of stock on which they are grafted and have borne 

 full crops of fine fruit for several years, but most of the scions died the 

 year they were set, some bore fruit a few years and then died, quite 

 a number of the original trees died in consequence of so much heavy 

 cutting of limbs. This fall I have pulled out about 25 of these trees 

 and set Montmorency in their places, after losing so much time and ex- 

 pense. One of my neighbors has the same experience and has arrived 

 at the same conclusion as my own. 



Buying so much hay and other feed for the livestock necessary to 

 every farm has been a heavy expense, so that about a dozen years ago I 

 began experimenting with the intention of raising much of this feed. 

 Again I refer to Prof. Smith, with whom I Avas in frequent corres- 

 pondence at that time. Following his advice I planted half an acre 

 with sand lucerne. The seed proved to be too old and was a failure. 

 The second planting of half an acre seemed to be a success and I was 

 much encouraged, although I had some trouble with June grass. I 

 summer fallowed these half acres to have a clean seed bed but June 

 grass has a way of appearing to be dead and then coming to life in the 

 fall as strong as ever. 



I prepared a summer fallow of six acres with unusual care, running 

 the spring tooth harrow over it frequently all spring and summer. In 

 September on Prof. Smith's advice I soAved 3 acres of this piece to sand 

 lucerne but it all winter killed. The remaining three acres I harrowed 

 twice the following spring and sowed it thick with the lucerne in May 

 but it was, as usual very slow in starting and most of the seeding was 

 again choked out by the June grass, a most grievous disappointment. I 

 cannot recall at the present time anything being said about bacterial 

 innoculation of seed — I think this important essential is of later dis- 

 covery. For some years I abandoned all effort to raise hay but in recent 

 years I have, by innoculation, obtained a fairly good stand of alfalfa on 

 one of my steep hills. 



"Hope springs eternal in the human breast." 



During the first eight years, however, I had many setbacks, some 



