HoG HOARD OK AGRICULTUKE. 



care for it; but whou it comes to tbe real facts, we all like it. We ought 

 to have it. but tbe question is how shall we get it? It costs something 

 to grow fruit. There is only about one farmer in ten that knows any- 

 thing about fruit, aufi should these people try to raise? They never 

 give it any particular study, and as has been said, the first and important 

 thing is to learn something about it before you undertake to raise it; un- 

 derstand it before going at it. I commenced seven years ago, and like 

 Brother Jones, I coiumonced at tlie wrong end; I commenced, and studied 

 afterward.*?. I would have saved a great deal if I had reversed this. 

 Suppose I should go to a railroad man and make an application for a 

 position as a telegraph operator. This would be just about as sensible as 

 to try to raise fruit without knowing anything about it. We must be 

 prepared, but as 1 have said, this preparation costs a great deal of money. 

 A spraying apparatus costs $20 or $25 but some irresponsible agent goes 

 around over the country selling a spraying apparatus for from $3 to $5. 

 These will not amount to anything. We must get something that will 

 do the work. 



Profes.sor Troop: I want to suggest that the very best equipment 

 that one can have is a knowledge of how to do these things, just as the 

 last speaker has stated. Just one instance. A man came to me for in- 

 formation concerning strawberries. He said: "I have nice plants, and 

 nice vines, but they do not bear any fruit." I asked him how many and 

 what varieties he had. It later developed that he had only one variety— 

 a pistillate; so it "was easy to know why his plants did not bear. He 

 must have two kinds— staminate and pistillate — in order to have fruit. 

 He had cultivated the plants well, and all that, but that did not do. Now. 

 just a little knowledge right there would have saved all this trouble, and 

 he would have had a good crop of fruit. So I say the best equipment 

 one can have is a knowledge of the business, and that is what we are 

 trying to get at this meeting. 



Mr. Milhous: Do any of us know how much fruit farmers will use? 

 I have been raising berries for quite a number of farmers in the com- 

 munity, and for the first time in twenty-five years we bought our berries 

 this year. We bought berries at fifty cents a gallon. We Avould not do 

 M'ithout strawberries; I would not do without them if they were .$2 a 

 gallon. This year wet weather and hay used as covering made a meadow 

 out of our strawberry patch, and as a result we bought our berries. 

 There are a great many farmers that do not raise their fruit because they 

 do not think they have time to attend to it. I had a neighbor that I had 

 been trying to get to raise strawberries, and he always gave as his excuse 

 that he did not have time. He came past one day where I was setting 

 out plants, and stopped and began talking. I thought I would test him, 

 so I commenced counting my plants. I planted two hundred and fifty. 

 I then said to him: "Look here, neighbor; you say you haven't time to 



