oO TRANSACTIONS OF THE TLLTNOTS 



DISCUSSION ON THE REPORTS. 



Dr. Humphrey — I wish to inquire if this ])aper barrel spoken of is 

 so manufactured that it can he headed up and unheaded at will? 

 Prof. '1'urner — It is. The head is in one single piece. 

 Mr. Galusha — In confirmation of the remarks in Mr. Hammond's 

 report, in regard to pruning and heading trees, I have this to say : Train- 

 ing trees low has l)een my theory for many years. I was, during the past 

 autumn, traveling in a buggy through several of the central counties of the 

 State, and took occasion to notice the condition of the orchards on the 

 road, and how they were affected by the different methods of treatment 

 in pruning. 



My observations confirm the teaching of the essay. I stopped over 

 one night with a well-to-do farmer, who dealt largely in swine and steers, 

 and cared little and knew less about horticulture ; and in course of the 

 evening I inquired as to the extent of his fruit-growing on his large farm. 

 He replied that "■ he planted over a hundred trees eight or ten years ago, 

 but didn't get apples enough for his own use ; his trees were sickly, and 

 the insects at work at them and his fruit too, so he had but very little 

 fruit fit to use. He had seeded down his orchard years ago, and it 

 was going to ruin fast ; it was no use to try to grow fruit here ; he could 

 buy it cheaper than raise it, it was no fruit country; and he was out of all 

 manner of patience with men who were selling fruit trees and cheating 

 people into the belief that they would do well here. He bought his fruit 

 from Michigan, where fruit would grow." 



I did not converse farther with him, knowing he was not the kind of 

 a man to be convinced of his error; but the next morning took a survey 

 of his orchard. It was, as I expected to find it, composed of tall-bodied 

 trees, nearly all leaning to the northwest, some entirely dead, and many 

 of them nearly ruined by the borers, which had attacked them, and by 

 the winter "sun-scalds" on the southwest sides of the trunks. They 

 looked as though they had been attacked also by that worse than insect 

 foe — the \i\w^x^wX professional orchard primer, who, having learned his 

 trade (?) in the East, has come West to make money by destroying the 

 orchards of those who neither read the papers nor keep their horticultural 

 eyes open ; for the trees had been robbed of a large part of their branches, 

 and, as the proprietor said, were in a feeble, dying condition, having 

 made \ery little growth the past season. 1 had not driven a mile from 

 this orchard before my attention was arrested by another orchard upon 



