43G HOARD OF AGRK'ULTUREi 



erable area in the State where apples cau uot be successfully grown. 

 My personal knowledge of the southern i)ortion of the State is limited, 

 but 1 have seen the iiroduct of this district on exhibition at the meetings 

 of this Society, and at the State Fairs, and can truthfully say that I 

 never saw tiner specimens anywhere than some that have come from 

 this section. The nortliern district has the advantage in latitude for 

 growing winter apples, and the proximity to tlie great lalces moderates 

 the extreme cold of the winters, but the fruit does not get the color 

 that characterizes the southern grown fruit. IIow much of this is due 

 to climatic influences and how much is due to soil I am unable to 

 say, but l)elieve that l)oth have their influence. AVith all these favorable 

 conditions we are buying lai'ge quantities of apples every year for home 

 consumption, when we should be placing thousands of car loads upon 

 the markets of the world. Seek the cause of this where we may, we 

 can arrive at but one conclusion, and that is that it is the man that 

 is lacking. There are a few enterprising, energetic men in various parts 

 of the State who are demonstrating the possibilities of apple growing 

 with profit to themselves, but the great majority are content to follow 

 the beaten paths of those who have gone before us, no matter how 

 crooked and full of obstacles they may be, without a thought of whether 

 they are leading us to poverty or prosperity. 



^rnch credit is due to the energetic men who have gotten out of 

 the beaten paths, and their numbers should be increased, for we have 

 but fcAv Burtons, and Flicks and Thomases, and but one Zion. The 

 work of this Society in our experimental orchard can not fail to be of 

 great benefit to the State in this connection, and the Society can 'do 

 no better Avoi'k tlian to foster this industry in every possible manner. 



INIr. Grossman: I am sorry I was late, but it was unavoidable. .1 

 did not Avrite a paper on this subject, for I thought Mr. Swaim was 

 better posted and able to handle this subject. I have taken a few sta- 

 tistics from the report of the State Statistician for the year 1902. In 

 speaking of the conditions at the present time I find in what experience 

 I have had, and in the observations I have made in traveling over the 

 small portion of the State that I have been over, that as a rule farmers 

 are not planting more apples than they need for their own use, and 

 few are planting even enough for that, and the orchards that were 

 planted in the past, as a rule, have become almost worthless and almost 

 extinct, and the present generations are not replacing those orchards 

 with the same number of trees that were originally upon the farm. 

 A farmer as a rule selects a variety of apples that will meet his own 

 needs, and about twenty-five or thirty ti'ees are more often planted 

 than a larger number. Of course there are exceptions. We have certain 

 localities in the State where there are a number of horticulturists, 

 and in the last ten years they have planted quite extensive apple or- 

 chards, and we will hear later from them because they will come into 



