Transactions at tue Annual Meeting. 157 



Duaheh. 



Columbia 208. 022 



Dodjre , V.)l ,483 



Fond du Lac 197, ;^(55 



Dane ] !)r), 898 



Grant 1G0,G!)7 



Kicine 143,275 



Green 135, 971 



Washington 130,006 



The seven next highest in yield and in the order named, are 

 Green Lake, Winnebago, Kenosha, La Fayette, Sauk, Ozaukee 

 and Iowa ; all over 50,000 bushels. (A table giving these statis- 

 tics in full will be found at the end of this volume.) Is it any 

 wonder that with a yield of over 3,000,000 bushels in excess of 

 any previous year our markets were glutted and all our facilities 

 for handling and preserving the crop were entirely inadequate? 

 Years of preparation in establishing markets, and of experience 

 in handling, will be necessary to enable us to properly utilize such 

 a yield. The fruit growers of Wisconsin have encountered many 

 discouragements in their efforts to raise fruit, but this is the first 

 season they have experienced the disheartening effort of too great 

 success, but this is an evil that will be easier to bear the oftener 

 it is repeated. 



The reported number of trees of bearing age, and also the 

 number of acres in orchard, are less than a year ago. This may 

 be the result of inaccurate returns, or it may be a fact, and due 

 to natural causes, as the depletion of the vital energies of the 

 trees by excessive fruitage, so that the trees were broken down 

 by the rigors of last winter. Taking into consideration the loss 

 of vitality and consequent lack of maturity, which must have 

 resulted from such a yield, together with great lack of moisture 

 in the soil in the fall, and the earliness and rigor with which 

 winter set in, and the extreme and long continued cold, the wonder 

 is that the loss is not much greater, for these conditions would seem 

 to be a more trying ordeal than many which have brought wholesale 

 destruction to nurseries and orchards in years past. There are two 

 facts to which I would like to call attention here. One is that in 

 the midst of these adverse conditions some of our trees, hardy 

 and half hardy alike, not only escaped injury, but have even 

 borne a fair crop of fruit the present season. The other is, the re- 



