STATE IIORTICULTUUAI, ><OCIRTV. 4.% 



save me all trouble about wine-presses (or tlic \ incvard. as well as ai)out 

 ladders for the cherries and baskets for the strawl)erries, raspberries and 

 green peas; and 1 can always see where the best pear hangs in the tree-to|) 

 by merely noticing that they have picked into one side of it ; or, if extra 

 good, into several sides. 



Apples, hereabouts, have come to be terribly infested by the Codling 

 moth, in all fruit-yards near the towns ; but in isolated orchards in the 

 country, where hogs, sheep and stock can be freely turned in to gather 

 the fiillen fruit, the trouble is far less. Cleaning, soaping, hooping, 

 shingling, ragging, clouting, and bagging the trees, will do little good if 

 \ou are where the insects can fly in upon you on all sides from your neigh 

 bors' neglected premises. In such conditions the only sure remedy is to 

 take the orchard into the house and carry it down cellar ; or, perhaps, to 

 get up in the morning and sprinkle lime on the fruit itself, every time 

 the dew falls, while the pests are on the wing. 



But the poor insects have had a hard time of it the past season. 

 That great labor-saving machine did u|) the job for them more effectually 

 than it did for us. 



On the whole, Central Illinois is not favorable to fruit raising as a 

 business, except in quite favored locations. Our farmers can generally 

 get a comfortable supply of fruits for themselves and families with very 

 little trouble, and have a little now and then for sale ; but their great 

 staple business is now, and always must be, stock and grain raising ; and 

 in that line they are wholly unsurpassed. Along the rivers and among the 

 hills and barren lands, quite off from our richest grain and grass lands, whicli 

 will be found our best lands for fruit ; and such locations can be found, 

 abundantly sufficient to .supply the country with fruit, ever ready for those 

 who have a taste for its culture. We have reason to hope, I think, that 

 the extreme vicissitude of the past season, its fitful colds and heats, its 

 excessive rains, together with its almost utter destruction of the fruit crop, 

 will tend greatly to relieve us of our insect enemies, of all sorts, and put 

 us in the way of soon again having a fine crop of fruit. 



After the reading of the report, the President announced that the 

 next thing in order on the regular programme was a report of the Com- 

 mittee on Orchard Culture, and suggested that this report be heard before 

 discussion upon Professor Turner's report should be held, as the same 

 sulijects, to some extent, w^ould probably l)e treated in both papers. No 

 one objecting, the President called for a report from A. C. Hammond 

 of Warsaw, who pre.sented it, as follows : 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON ORCHARD CULTURE. 



The long-to-be-remembered winter of 1855-56 was the first that had 

 occurred, since the fruit interest had been of any magnitude, of suf- 

 ficient severity to seriously injure our orchards. That winter swejit most 

 of our tender trees out of existence, and injured many more that lingered 

 between life and death for years, but finalh broke down or died. 



