ixniAXA TTOTrnm.TrKAi, socikty. -V.^l 



ininipkin mikI milk and such potatoes as father couldn't sell, and the girls 

 wanted the advantages of Ihe piano, etc., that the girls in town have, and 

 off they went. So, many of these hillside farms stand idle, and some of 

 these places are only twenty-five or tliirty miles from New York. So you 

 see many hillside farms growing wild. They are idle, no one will take 

 them and handle them. I saw this situation and it occurred to me tliat 

 there was a good opi'ortunity. There is an opportunity in everything tliat 

 a man runs up against, or tliat a man runs away from. If you will take 

 these things up tliere is an opportunity in them. If one man runs aAvay 

 from these tilings, and another man takes it up and puts amltition into 

 them, and care and thought— this the first man wouldn't do— he can 

 m;ike a succ«'ss, and it seemed to me tliat tliesc hillsides farms were oppor- 

 tunities. I could buy ninety acres of fair land for four thousand five 

 hundred dollars, or fifty dollars an acre, and it struck me that there was 

 an opporttmity that doesn't come into every man's life. I seized the 

 oppi)rtunit.v. Tlie first thing I did was to break three or four plows try- 

 ing to improve the ground, and I almost came to the conclusion that I 

 didn't blame the first man for riuining away from this job. I employed 

 the Superintendent of the Sabbath-school, and started him to work, but 

 when he came in at night his face was as long as a fence post, and he told 

 me emphatically that he tried to plow the field and lost all of his religion 

 before he got four times around. Now that is a dangerous thing to uo 

 to jiut a man to work in a field like that. When I found tliat I could not 

 cultivate the ground I began to try to think of something else. I had 

 l»een noticing that seedling apple trees were springing up all around, and 

 the thought struck me, if wild apple trees Avill grow, why won't tame 

 ones if they have right conditions. The best autliority that I could get on 

 fruit culture told me that there was no use in planting trees unless you 

 could properly prepare the ground. It told me that I must prepare it as 

 cjirefully as though I were going to pl:uit corn, and that it was out of the 

 (luestion to h.indlc such land in the way that I suggested. But still it 

 occmred to me that my reasoning was perfectly sound. Now, my system 

 of cultivating trees is on rough land, and I am not sure that it will be of 

 benefit to you, but it will lead to discussion. If my statements seem too 

 birgc c.-ill me right down. I am here io lie Jumped on and cut to piect'S. 

 I have always agreed with Saul, tluit the nearer the Ijone, tlie sweeter the 

 meat. I don't know whether that is true in Indiana, or not. This 

 api»ealed to us boys, because we were always given the bone to gnaw in 

 those days. I think in the same way, that the ne.irer we can get the 

 roots to the rocks the less danger there is from drouth. There is a better 

 chance if the root goes down deep in the rocky mountain soils, and soils 

 covered with stone and big rocks. It seems to me this is an ideal place 

 on which to gn»w good varieties of apph's. In the first pl:ice we l»egin 

 without cultivating the land at all. I wish tli.it I li:i<l .-i young tree here 

 so that I could show you just how we begin. 1 have always believeil 



