INDIANA HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 529 



Some say it is cheaper to buy. Yes, but you don't buy them as a rule. 

 This is only an excuse when you say that it is cheaper to buy than to raise 

 them. It is not true in the first place, and in the next you don't do it. 

 If you raise them at home you "nail have them, and as I said before, 

 that is one of the points that I wish to impress upon each member. Make 

 use of these possibilities by planting at once, and do not put it off until 

 some more favorable opportunity, for that opportunity verj^ rarely comes. 

 It is like an opportunity in business. You will have to make the oppor- 

 tunity yourself. If you don't do it no one else will make the opportunity 

 for you, and it will not be' done. 



Now, as to orchard fruits. A great many people make a mistake when 

 they choose the trees for their orchards. In the first place I may say that 

 every farmer should have what would be properly called a family orchard. 

 A commercial ox'chard is all right, but above all, have a family orchard. 

 A family orchard is an orchard which will produce different varieties of 

 fruit, from the earliest to the latest, without a gap in time, or a 

 time when there will be no fruit at all. Now this is where skill and knowl- 

 edge comes in. You should have a knowledge of when certain fruits will 

 ripen, whether or not they will, be a success in your particular locality, 

 etc. Now we have a good guide in the nursei-ymen's catalogue, for I 

 want to say to you that nurserymen are about the most philanthropic and 

 most useful people in the whole country. They are doing a world of good 

 wherever they live, and they are doing the countiy, as a whole, good. 

 They give advice as to what, when and how to plant and take care of 

 fruit. Some of these catalogues are really excellent books on fruit grow- 

 ing, and they will tell you, if you do not know by experience, how to do 

 things. If you will pay more attention to what is said in these little 

 catalogues you will learn a great deal and be veiy much profited. There 

 are books and pamphlets on fruits laid right before our eyes, and yet we 

 are so blind we pay no attention and make a kind of a guess. I have 

 known apple orchards planted out— and I'll venture there- are some here— 

 where there were five or six or ten Red Astrachans, and a Maiden Blush, 

 and then there will be a skip of about two or three weeks when there 

 won't be any apples at all. And the next thing is a winter apple tha,t will 

 ripen about Christmas. Mow the intelligent way to begin is to begin with 

 the earnest, say for instance the Yellow Transparent, of which have one 

 or two trees, or the Summer Rose, which is another very early apple. 

 And three or four trees of the Red Astrachan. That would be an extreme 

 number. It would be more probably than you would use. But why not 

 have sense and wit enough to plant more than you can use yourself. A 

 little later plant those like the Lowell, .leftVrson and Hawley and Maiden's 

 Blush, if you like it. I don't, because I think we have better varieties. 

 I would be willing to throw away every variety we have if we could get" 

 something better. Let's get the best there is, and if we have the best 

 there is there is nothing more to do for the men, women and children who 



34— Agri. 



