Annual Meeting — Report of Secretary. 115 



a fair crop in 1879. The thermometer has only been down to 

 twenty-four degrees, at my place, but the present and continuing 

 warm weather may start the trees too early. The only way is to 

 hope for the best. 



ELEVENTH DISTRICT C. W. HUMPHREY, MITCHELL. 



Counties — Sheboygan, Calumet and Manitowoc, Had I been 

 requested to make a report on fruit five or six years ago, I should 

 have been as ready to tell you what I knew about fruit as the late 

 Mr. Greeley was to tell " what he knew about farming." But times 

 have changed, and men often change with them. There was a 

 time when I thought I knew a great deal about fruit (apples), but 

 recent developments have satisfied me that I don't know much 

 about this subject. Once, without reserve, I should have been 

 willing to give a good deal of advice, but now I can only slightly 

 record my observations and my experience. 



In the first place, I live upon oak land, the native timber of which 

 is white and red oak, with a good deal of hickory, iron wood, black 

 cherry and, in fact, a good sprinkling of all kinds of timber. The 

 soil is common to that kind of timber, and is what I call a light 

 clay, or marl, of a calcareous nature, partaking some of sand and 

 gravel, with a tenacious red clay and limestone, gravelly subsoil. 

 From my observations fruit trees do as well, or better, on this kind 

 of soil than on any other with which I am acquainted. 



It is said we often learn as much by a failure as a success. So we 

 do. And knowledge thus acquired is often more expensive and 

 lasting than successful knowledge. Thirty-one years ago last fall I 

 set a few apple trees on the farm where I now live. Many of them 

 are good, thrifty trees to-day. The English Golden Russet, the 

 Russet with light colored speckled wood, and the Westfield Seek- 

 No-Further are thrifty, good bearing trees. One early Sour Bough 

 bears good crops every other year. The balance of the few trees 

 first set have long since gone the way of all the earth. I do not 

 know what varieties they were. 



I once thought protection was essential to successful fruit grow- 

 ing; then I thought it was not; but now again I think it is. But 

 on which side? that's the question. I would give, as my opinion, 

 that the west, northwest and southwest are the points against which 

 an apple orchard needs the most protection. Some of the best 



