STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 121 



horticulturists of Washington county are not wholly discouraged. Many of our energetic 

 and persevering ones are steadily at work, determined to learn lessons of wisdom from 

 the adverse experience of the past, and in the future to deserve success, even if they dc) 

 not secure it. 



" The question of cheap and certain transportation, fidelity and promptness of com- 

 mission men, character, cost and quality, packages, etc., are all more or less intelligentl) 

 discussed by our people, and the hope is entertained that in the near future justice will 

 be more nearly done to the grower, bv those who carrv and sell our products. 



"RicHViEW, li.i.."' ' ' G. WILGUS." 



BOND COUNTY. 



" This county has shared the general damaging effect of last winter's cold, though, 

 ))erhaps, in a less degree than many others. Some Apple trees in orchards, especially 

 Rambo, have been injured. 



" My orchard is on the south side of a belt of different sorts of timber — Pin-Oak 

 and other kinds — and I think the timber is of great benefit to the orchard. 



"My Grape vines, Blackberries and other small fruits, were nearly all killed ; also 

 a portion of my Peach trees. 



'^Planting. — I prefer fall-planting of Apples and Pears as a general rule, though 

 the best success I ever had was in planting on the 12th of May — the ground and season 

 being favorable. 



"Cultivation. — The usual mode of cultivating orchards here is to cultivate with corn 

 for several years ; afterwards plow them occasionally. I think, however, that an orchard 

 may be injured by too much cultivation. 



"High or Lou> Heads. — There is much said respecting low heads versus long stems, 

 and on this topic I will relate my own experience. I have trees branching five feet 

 from the ground, and others not more than two feet. While I (jan see no difference in 

 the quality of the fruit, there is a great difference in the time and labor necessary to 

 gather the fruit ; and further, while the low-headed trees are free from sun-scald the 

 tall bodies are injured by it ; 1 therefore prefer low-headed trees. My oldest trees are 

 twelve years old from planting. 



"Gathering and Keeping. — My best success in gathering and presen-ing Apples has 

 been to pick carefully by hand, pile in an out-building till cold, freezing weather, then 

 jiut in barrels in which lime had been kept, and put in the cellar. In this way I have 

 kept ' Bellflowers and Rambos into May.' 



»E. GASKINS." 



CALHOUN COUNTY. 



" Horticulture has been much neglected in this part of the countiy, though gradu- 

 ally gaining ground for the last few years, several parties having engaged quite exten- 

 sively in the cultivation of Apple orchards, some of which contain several hundred acres. 

 Peaches and Pears have been cultivated also, for market, with success. 



" The principal impediment to profitable fruit culture is the extreme cold of some 

 of our winters, like that of last winter, which killed some trees entirely, and others so 

 much weakened as to check their growth, and render them subject to diseases and 

 attacks of insect enemies. I have noticed, during the last two years, many trees which 

 began to die at the extremities of some of the branches, gradually dying down to the 

 bodies; and when decay reached the trunks the whole went into decay. 



" My plan to produce a healthy growth in Apple trees is to mulch when young, 

 and give no other cultivation. Plant trees on a northern exposure, mulch, prune when 

 necessary, and leave nature to do the rest. Pears and Peaches, however, seem to have 

 a different nature, and require protection ; the mulching process will not do for them, 

 as it produces decay. 



" It is contended by some of our fruitists ' that we will have to go back to first 

 principles ' in fruit-raising — growing natural fruit — as we had no trouble to grow good 

 crops thirty or forty years ago, when all our Apple trees were seedlings. 



