STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 5 



swab smear tbem, say in the fore-part of December. One appli- 

 cation is usually sufficient, for the year. 



Seventh, Varieties. Choose those varieties that do best in 

 your locality, and get your trees from a reliable source; for it is 

 a sad loss to pay for a thing, wait iive or six years, and iind your- 

 self sadly disappointed. Do not plant too many varieties. I 

 think the list recommended by your society is a good one. Do 

 not go too fast on Russians at forty cents. 



Eighth, After Treatment. The orchard should be kept in good 

 cultivation for at least six years, with some hoed crop. Cultiva- 

 tion is one mode of mulching. Use corn one year, potatoes one 

 year, Hubbard squash one year, pumpkins one year, beans one 

 year, and buckwheat one year. Now your orchard is six years 

 old, and has probably come into bearing. If you wish to seed 

 down, seed with clover, let it lie for mulch. Your orchard is 

 complete, now enjoy its fruits. Turn in your calves, your sheep, 

 your colts, and pigs, and you will not be bothered with sun-scald, 

 codlin-moth, twig-blight, tent caterpillars, or fruit thieves. 



Let me say in conclusion that the orchard is the most abused 

 piece of ground on the farm ; it must produce a crop of apples, a 

 crop of hay, and afford calf pasture. And nothing returned to 

 it. Any kind of grass that forms a sod will destroy an orchard 

 much sooner than plants that do not turf. These turfs in addi- 

 tion to exhausting the plant food in the soil, exclude the air. 

 And I attribute the failure of our orchard to starvation. 



DISCUSSION. 



Dr. Humphrey — I have planted orchards for about twenty-live 

 years and I think I am now beginning to learn a little about planting 

 them. I want to plant one next year and see if I can't have apples 

 of my own raising when 1 grow old. The bare fact stares us in the 

 face that the orchards of Illinois have wasted away. Does it result 

 from faults in planting, or is it from climatic reasons ? Last year we 

 were overloaded with apples in our part of the State, and this 

 year we are getting them from Iowa. It certainly is not because 

 we need new varieties, because I know of Roman Stems that are 

 sixty years old and are still bearing. I also know of many later 

 planted orchards that are broken down. 



Mr. McKinney — Some families of animals are long lived and 

 some are short. It is the same way with apples, some are short 

 and some are long lived. We need to plant more new orchards. 



J. M. Pearson — I have seen an orchard planted and the first or 

 second year after planting, cultivated in potatoes. At times such 



