204 State Horticultural Society. 



can plum, and we have a number of \vhat we call plum cranks in Iowa 

 and they are a pretty good thing to have. They are- a very useful class 

 of men. Whenever you find a plum crank or cherry crank or apple crank 

 or grape crank or any other kind of fruit cranks, they are the best kind 

 of cranks I know of. 



In regard to the apple crop in Iowa it has not been really a full crop. 

 Early summer and fall apples were a fair crop of very good quality, bur 

 winter apples are rather a short crop, perhaps from thirty to fifty per 

 cent. Some very good orchards where men have sprayed their orchards 

 and given them good care. It goes to show that we can't get something 

 for nothing in the fruit business. We have got to hustle and we have got 

 to work for all the good fruits we get. A few days ago a gentleman 

 from Oregon, who used to live in Iowa, called on me and paid me a lit- 

 tle visit, and he is in the apple region in Northeastern Oregon at an 

 elevation of five thousand feet above sea level, and I asked him about 

 his fruit crop and he said that it was really a good apple country, and 

 when he told me what altitude they were growing apples in, of course, 

 I could agree with him, and he said that they could not grow apples 

 at all, if they didn't spray — the Codling Moth was so numerous that they 

 had to fight for every apple they got, but they got good apples notwith- 

 standing the attacks of these insects. 



Now we have come to a stage of fruit growing in this country that 

 we have to give our trees careful attention. ■ We have got to spray. I 

 am a great believer in spraying, because I have seen good results from 

 careful men who have practiced it ; that is certainly substantial evidence 

 to us all when men have gone into it scientifically and persistently and 

 have succeeded; that is evidence that there is something in spraying. 



We can destroy insects to a great extent and w'e can preserve our 

 fruits by spraying. Now, over in Iowa, we grow cherries to a very 

 high degree of perfection. I am glad to hear our friend, Mr. Marshall, 

 from Nebraska, claim that they grow cherries all over the state. I guess 

 that is true. Nebraska is a good cherry state, but I don't believe it is 

 any ahead of Iowa. We grow great crops of cherries in Iowa. This 

 year we had a magnificent crop. But three years ago this winter (it 

 will be three years in February) vi^hen we had such excessive cold, 

 and combination of very peculiar climatic conditions, it destroyed many 

 of our cherry trees and plum trees and almost wiped the peach orchards 

 out, and fully eighty per cent, of the vineyards were destroyed and only 

 a small locality left where any were raised to any considerable extent. But 

 the peach crop this year was a good one wherever there were trees, even 

 up to the center of Iowa and north of the center up as far as Boone 

 county there were fine specimens of peaches grown and exhibited 



