60 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



which I have here set forth; some years I conld hardly keep my head 

 aboye water, financially, but I kept the orchard growing. 



Then came the great year 1003, great not only for me but for every- 

 body in this region who had good varieties of fruit in bearing and had 

 taken good care of themi. 



Not only a big crop, but what is still more important, a big price. 

 With so many years of good care of my orchard, 00 per cent of my fruit 

 graded fancy. Every Duchess apple tree, every crab tree had to be well 

 propped and even then some branches broke with the great crop of fruit 

 and the limbs of the cherry trees bent to the ground. 



This one crop paid for every fruit tree both living and dead I had set 

 in that eight years, for every other cash expense and the orchard stayed 

 with me, pay in future years for my toil and management. I was so 

 mjuch encouraged that I determined to plant a big crab orchard on the 

 piece of land already mentioned, where I had tried and failed with sand 

 lucerne, which is really a sand dune. This 10 acre block of Hyslop 

 crabs has been kept growing, first with fertilizer under the trees and 

 stable manure around them on top of the ground and since then with 

 several matured crops of peas plowed under, and more recently with 

 rye and vetch. These trees ha^e made good growth each of the six years 

 since they were planted, and are now ready to produce paying crops. 



Hyslop crab, while fairly profitable, has some drawbacks; it is sub- 

 ject to blight same as jiears. I have lost 200 trees from this cause in 

 the past 6 years. This fruit is slow to pick and must be placed on the 

 market in very limited time as they are in demand only a few weeks, 

 beside that they become mealy and therefore worthless it left in the 

 orchard too long. 



Crabs would not be profitable much south of this region as they Avould 

 mature too early there. 



Since the year 1003 I have had several good crops of fruit but the 

 past four years spring frosts have taken most of the ]>rofits, but the first 

 year the trees are full of fruit there will be ])rofit enough in that year 

 to tide over several poor years and ''thus will our winter of discontent 

 be made glorious summer." 



Most of this orchard is still young and this fall I have weeded out 

 unprofitable and dead trees and replaced themi with varieties well known 

 to be profitable and thus I am full of hope for the future. 



The word and the sentiment, hope, is what keeps us to our life work, 

 and the right way to spell that word is hop ; hop lively. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Cheney : Do you find by letting your crop mature you lose your 

 moisture? 



Mr. Bagley : The trees are matured in their growth that year, and 

 don't receive any benefit that season. The danger was in keeping them 

 growing too late, but have had no trouble. 



A Member: Don't you find that if you had a crop on the tree they 

 would lack moisture? Do you cultivate in the spring? 



Mr. Bagley : Certainly. My paper was so long when I was reading it 

 over, but I saw many points that were not covered. I sow the center of 

 the strip. My trees are twenty feet apart each way. I refer to what 

 Mr. Case said yesterday about planting close together and then taking 



