INDIANA HORTICULTURAL, SOCIETY. 433 



Mr. Williams, Jr.: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen— Mr. W. B. 

 Flick, our Secretary, asked me to prepare a paper giving my experience 

 and how I succeeded in growing each year such fine crops of fruit while 

 my neighbors for miles around have none worth naming. With but few 

 exceptions I can answer yom- question by saying that I sprayed my 

 trees. 



I have two orchards, which were planted at different times; one of 

 four' acres, which was planted in the spring of 1882; the other, one of 

 sixteen acres, in the spring of 1890, about which my friend, E. Y. Teas, 

 of Centerville, Indiana, has kindly volunteered to tell you. I shall 

 speak of the four-acre orchard only. This orchard is in the southwestern 

 part of Henry County, Indiana, just east of the range of hills that skirt 

 the eastern boundary of Blue River Valley. Just five miles below and 

 on the same side of this ever-flowing river is the far-famed and noted 

 orchard of Thomas T. Newby, of Carthage, Rush County. Indiana. At 

 this time let me say that both Mr. Newby's and my orchards are planted 

 on ground that was once covered by heavy timber, black walnut, poplar 

 and sugar tree. The soil naturally is a rich clay, sandy loam, underlaid 

 with gravel. 



I planted my trees in rows two rods apart in the row and culti- 

 vated between them for seven years. I raised corn, potatoes and melons 

 between the rows. I cultivated the trees the same as I did my corn, and 

 I believe that I did that successfully, being careful each year to thin out 

 and prune so as to make a nice symmetrical top. They grew veiy fast. 

 I covered the soil each year thinly with stable manure. They increased 

 in bearing, but some years the fruit was knotty and wormy, so I con- 

 cluded to buy a spray pump and spray. I did so. 



I gave this orchard three good sprayings with Bordeaux mixture. In 

 the fall we picked from 70 Ben Davis trees 490 bushels of marketable 

 apples, and apples being a good price, I realized over $100.00 per acre that 

 year. It was then that I decided to plant the sixteen-acre orchard. 



I have had several paying crops since then, and they have always 

 come when I sprayed my trees well. This four-acre orchard has a stream 

 running through it, almost through the center, so I concluded to make a 

 "special spray orchard" test out of it this year. The west side of the 

 orchard we gave four sprayings, the first time before the buds had 

 bloomed, second time just after the blooms had fallen and ten days later 

 we sprayed again and the fourth and last spraying ten or fifteen days 

 later; result, full of fine apples. The east side of the orchard we only 

 sprayed twice, with the exception of a few trees that were sprayed four 

 times. I did this to see what would be the result. From the trees that 

 we sprayed four times we gathered apples that took the first prize at the 

 Indiana State Fair, while the fruit from the trees that only had two 

 sprayings, standing near the ones that had four sprayings, was not mar- 

 ketable. Kvery tree that was sprayed in May and June was'loaded with 



28-Agri. 



