STATE HOKTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 99 



for if when young and starting up, the vitality which is to enahh.' it 

 in future years to withstand the extremes of temperature to wliieli 

 it is to be subjected, and bear fruit at the same time, it is required 

 instead to use this surplus energy in battling with present foes, the 

 result can only be a weakling that will be killed by the first hard 

 winter. The successful stock l)reeder recognizes this principle and 

 never thinks of allowing his animals to shift for themselves for the 

 first portion of their lives, and then expecting to bring them into the 

 best condition by after treatment. He rather attends to their wants 

 from the first, and aims to keep up a healthy, continued growth. So 

 must it l)e with our orchards. We can not carelessly stick the trees 

 in the earth, allow them to be robbed of their nourishment by vege- 

 tation covering the ground, the sap sucked from their roots by plant 

 lice, the wood and l)ark of their stems eaten by borers, and the 

 breathing pores of their leaves greedily devoured by a host of leaf 

 rollers, crumplers and skeletonizers, and expect by any after system 

 of renovation to produce a successful orchard. To the victor belongs 

 the spoils; and without overcoming these pests our orchards will be 

 but hollow mockeries. 



It is to the nurseryman that the fruit grower must look to be 

 assured that the trees he plants, until to the time of planting, keep 

 up tliis continued healthy growth which is so desirable. And still 

 more important is it that the nurseryman should be able to assure 

 his customer that the trees he sends out are not infested with the 

 hibernating stages of these various noxious insects, so that the 

 planter shall know that he is not adding new enemies to the already 

 large number ])resent in his neghborhood. There is very little doubt 

 that several of our worst orchard pests have been and are being 

 annually dissemenated through the agency of young apple trees 

 from nurseries. Hence it is a duty which the nurseryman owes both 

 to his patrons and to himself to see that these pests do not multiply 

 on his grounds, and to take all needful measures to insure that the 

 stock sent out be free from their various hibernating stages. An 

 acre of young apple trees is said to be worth from five hundred to a 

 thousand dollars, and it would seem as if every nurseryman could 

 well afford to expend a few dollars each year to free his stock from 

 insects. In many instances this is absolutely necessary, or else the 

 insects get such a start as to check the growth almost entirely. 



Viewed from a slightly different standpoint — that of his repu- 

 tation — this subject is one of vital importance to the professional 

 nurseryman, and one which he can by no means afford to neglect. 

 No intelligent fruit-grower (and it goes without saying that the 

 great majority of fruit-growers are intelligent) cares to have new 

 enemies imported into his neighborhood; and if he receives from any 

 given nurseryman a consignment of infested trees, neither the 

 planter nor his neighbors will be very likely to patronize that nurs- 

 eryman again. Prof. Forbes informs me that he has heard of several 



