WAESAAV HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 309 



MARCH MEETING. 



The Warsaw Horticultural Society met in the Society's hall, 

 Warsaw, Wednesday, March 16th. President Brown in the chair. 



A. C. Hammond read a carefully prepared paper on "Orchard 

 Planting and Management," which was overflowing with intelligent 

 thought and valuable experiences. The writer is evidently familiar 

 with this subject and qualified to give us useful information upon a 

 Cjuestion of present importance to every fruit grower in the land. 



ORCHxiRD PLAIs^TlXG AND MANAGEMENT. 



BY A. C. HAMMO]SrD, WAKSAW. 



That the outlook is discouraging, particularly to the apple 

 grower, is only too evident. With half of his trees dead, and the 

 price of his products ruinously low, the orchardist is more than half 

 inclined to abandon his business and turn his attention to something 

 more profitable. 



We often hear the remark made that our winters are getting 

 colder, and our summers drier, and insects increasing so rapidly that 

 fruit cannot longer be grown with profit, and that our future sup- 

 ply must come from a warmer climate. The failures and disasters 

 of the last few years would seem to indicate that this opinion is cor- 

 rect, and that the days of profitable fruit growing in the northwest 

 are numbered. But before accepting this theory, let us see if we 

 cannot discover some cause for this unprecedented destruction of 

 trees. 



Previous to 1880 our orchards were in excellent condition, but 

 that season we gathered the largest crop they ever produced, nearly 

 all varieties being loaded to their utmost capacity. It will be re- 

 membered that August and September and part of October of that 

 year were very hot and dry, which made it impossible for the trees 

 to ripen their immense load without drawing so heavily upon their 

 vitality as to greatly weaken them. In 1881 the foliage appeared 

 unhealthy, and the trees made but little growth, but bore a partial 

 crop of fruit which the tree was in poor condition to perfect, and 

 this was a further drain upon its vital forces. Soon after, our series 

 of cold winters set in, and our orchards having been overcropped and 

 underfed and scorched by unusual drouths, succumbed to the fury of 

 the terrible blizzards. In my opinion, if the weather had been 

 favorable, and the ground supplied with the ordinary amount of 

 moisture, the trees would have been able to ripen the immense crop 

 of 1880 without any special injury; or if during the next summer 



