CARE OF THE ORCHARD. 

 By Edward A'ax Alstyne, Kinderhook. N. Y. 



With all our great shows in New York — and we are proud 

 of our horticultural meetings, we have two of them where the 

 people gather by thousands, every man having paid his dollar 

 or two dollars before he enters the door — and with all the en- 

 thusiasm, and our good program, we never have put up a show 

 that even approximated to this. We have our exhibits that are 

 excellent, and at our state fairs our two great societies show 

 varieties running up into the thousands of plates, beautiful, in- 

 structive — but it is a great deal easier to get five individual speci- 

 mens than it is to get a box, and to obtain a hundred boxes is 

 harder still. And so I want to emphasize what that means and 

 to say to you people that any state which can put out such an ex- 

 hibit as that need not fear the competition of the world around. 



Before I take up my special topic, the care of the orchard, I 

 want to say a word or two in relation to the situation as a whole. 



In order to care for the orchard one must first have one to 

 care for, hence, I want to say a little about the importance and 

 the value of orchards, and second, as to the varieties. If I 

 could impress upon any young man, or any man just starting 

 out in the orchard business, the possibilities in a financial way, 

 I should feel that my visit to j\Iaine had not been in vain. 



The apple area over the United States is limited. I have 

 little fear of competition from the Pacific slope. First, be- 

 cause many of the orchards in the West are short lived; next, 

 because of transportation charges, only the very best can af- 

 ford to be shipped out, and while they raise fruit beautiful in 

 appearance it can never compare in quality with that grown in 

 the East. 



Realizing exactly what I say, I would say very emphatically 

 that I should rather have ten acres of bearing apple orchard on 

 land adapted to this fruit than a hundred acres devoted to the 

 most profitable farm crop grown in ]\Iaine or New York. 



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