INDIANA HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 337 



plant strawberries. Two hundred would be all that you could use, and 

 you have talked to me while I have planted two hundred and fifty. You 

 have time to plant a patch every day you live." Two years after that he 

 came to me and said: "I have concluded that I have time to plant a 

 strawberry patch." You will use ten times as much fruit at your table 

 as you would think you would use. It is the same, way with pears. 

 Some of my neighbors will come and buy Keifer pears at $1.00 a bushel, 

 when they could just as well raise them themselves, for they could buy 

 all the trees they want for 50 cents, and have pears in bountiful supply. 



President Stevens: We have spent as much time on this subject as 

 we can spare, so we will take up the next one. "Shall We Try to Re- 

 invigorate the Old Orchard or Plant New?" 



Mr. De Vilbiss: Friends and Fellow Citizens, Mr. President— "Shall 

 We Try to Reinvigorate the Old Orchard or Plant New?" Yes, to both of 

 these questions. There is no branch of agriculture so badly neglected as 

 our farm orchards, and the methods and means of restoring them are so 

 little understood that it seems as if our farm orchards will soon be a 

 thing of the past. Year by year our family and market supply of fruit 

 grows less and less and we reluctantly and naturally begin to think, 

 "What am I to do for fruit?" We go into the orchard and find the loca- 

 tion right, and the orchard where we want it, but many trees are missing, 

 and those that remain are partially dead. The question arises, "Shall I 

 plant* a new orchard or try to build up this one?" You perhaps inquire 

 of the neighbors, and most of them will say, "You can't make a tree grow 

 in ;in old orchard." So the orchard is neglected for another year; per- 

 haps many. We admit that it is a difficult task, and we do not wonder 

 that only 13 per cent, of all trees planted ever come to bearing when 

 conditions are as far removed from Nature. Nature is a severe task- 

 master, and demands a strict compliance with her laws before she will 

 yield up her treasures. The old orchards have been robbed so ruthlessly 

 and so systematically through cropping and pasturing that not a vestige 

 of vegetable mould remains in the soil. The ground is so bare that even 

 the leaves, nature's own covering, are scattered hither and thither, and 

 the soil is reduced to abject poverty. If your orchard is where you want 

 it, and is not so far gone that it will not send up vigorous water-sprouts 

 and blossoms freely. I would say most emphatically, "Keep it then, and 

 restore it to a full stand and bearing." This can not be done in a year, 

 but it can be done quicker than you can get an entire new orchard. It 

 is not surprising that .«;o many people utterly fall to make 5^ung trees 

 grow in an old orchard. What would you think of a man who would 

 start to plow corn in an old sod field? Suppose he would dig a hole, drop 

 In his corn, onvor witli the turf or sod and leave It to grow as best It 

 could. Later In the summer he would turn in the cattle to eat the life 



22-Agri. 



