^6 State Horticultural Society. 



the crop — our expectations may not be relaized. The old question of our 

 boyhood days is still debatable, "Resolved there is more pleasure in pursuit 

 than in possession." 



Last fall I used a corn husker and shredder in putting away my 

 corn crop. Shredded fodder is a fine feed for a cow and after she has 

 ^one over it the waste makes her the nicest and dryest bed of anything 

 I have ever used. I hauled this direct from the stable and covered my 

 strawberry beds. It is the nicest stuff to cover strawberr\- beds or any- 

 thing you want to winter in the ground I ^ver saw. No grass or weed seed 

 in it ; then it retains the moisture well. Even in this eventful year of the 

 twentieth centur\-, 1901, we have had some ver\- fine strawberries with 

 only a sprinkle of rain since the 17th of last April. Then you all know- 

 that strawberries and peaches without cream would be like a negro out- 

 side of a watermelon patch. 



The cow is the greatest producer of fertilizers (when she is not 

 fed in the big road) that we have. How soon will it dawn on the aver- 

 age Horticulturalist that the trees and vines must be fed — m.anured. 

 Three or four years ago a fellow went through the country- selling trees 

 -and instructing the farmers how to set them. He had them to dig holes 

 two feet or more in depth and put a foot of well rotted manure in the 

 hole and the same soil and then plant the trees. When I see a man 

 putting manure under the roots of a tree to make it grow I think of the 

 boy whose duty it was to feed the calf from a bucket. The calf was 

 slow about drinking, so he tied the bucket of milk to its tail that it- might 

 take it along and drink when it got ready. Scatter the manure over the 

 surface away from the plant or tree a few inches or feet, as the case 

 jnay be, so that the heat, air and rains may convert it into food for the 

 plant and it will soon be found and taken up. 



This spring I received from Bro. Bagby a fine lot of pear trees. I 

 let a friend have two or three. During the time I was planting, his wife 

 ^dsited my family. At supper she says, "\\"e have so much trouble in 

 getting trees to grow, especially pear trees." "That is because you do 

 not know how to plant them," said I. "Well, then, I wish you would 

 show me and I will have ours planted over again." I sent for a tree. Now 

 Bro. Bagby grows his trees on a deep soil. He gets them out with long 

 roots that are often more than a foot long and seem to go nearly straight 

 down. I dug a hole about six inches deep and large enough to spread 

 the roots out nicely all around in. I then took my knife and about five 

 inches from the crown I cut on the underside the root about half off so 

 I could readily bend the roots out. I placed the tree in the hole, spread the 

 roots as indicated, drew in the top soil, firmed it well with my feet and the 

 tree is growing nicely. "But that is not according to directions," said 



