TRANSACTIONS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NORTHERN ILL. 235 



The motion prevailed, and the President said he would announce the 

 committees this evening. 



MISTAKES IN HORTICULTURE. 



Mr. Minkler moved that we tell some of our mistakes in horticul- 

 ture, as people often learn as much from the mistakes and failures of 

 others as from their successes. 



Mr. Barler moved to amend : that each one tell, briefly, only one 

 mistake. 



Both amendment and motion were agreed to, and the confessions 

 were opened by 



Mr. Minkler, who said that one of his many mistakes, and one 

 which he thought had been quite common, was in planting too many 

 varieties of apples. Too many autumn apples glut the market and reduce 

 the price, and it is hard to bring up the price afterwards to a just stand- 

 ard. He had fifty sorts, but if he were to plant orchards as extensive as 

 those of Mr. Wier he would plant but twenty kinds. 



Mr. Slade confessed to having planted, twenty years since, five hun- 

 dred pear trees, three-quarters of which were dwarfs, which had given him 

 but little fruit, and half of them are dead. The standards have done 

 better. This mistake was in planting dwarf pear trees at all. 



Mr. Barler — My mistake was in trying "to make two blades of 

 grass grow where one grew before;" or, rather, by growing two trees in 

 the space which one should occupy — too close planting. 



Mr. Piper — One of my early mistakes was in planting dwarf pear 

 trees by digging great holes and filling them nearly to the surface with 

 stones, etc. My trees nearly all froze out the second winter. I have 

 since succeeded well with dwarf pears, by mounding them up with red clay. 



D. C. Scofield — My error was in not planting my apple orchard on 

 the right kind of soil ; mine was rich prairie soil ; my neighbor, on tim- 

 ber land, had five hundred per cent, more fruit than I did. 



Mr. Scott — My first sad experience in horticulture was with sweet 

 cherries, in cutting away the soil where the trees vvere to stand and filling 

 in gravel. My tnistakew^?, in planting sweet cherries at all. I had large 

 trees but no fruit. 



Mr. Piper confessed to the same error — planting sweet cherries on 

 Mazzard stocks ; all are now dead. 



