190 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



spring. ^Ir. Fehringer built a beautiful house on his farm this year 

 aud by atlding this commercial orchard he will surely have a real com- 

 modious country home. 



Henry Schacher, ex-county supei'visor of St. Bernard township, has 

 been growing good crops of apples for many years on his fine farm 

 nine miles west of here, aud will add 750 trees of the standard com- 

 mercial varieties to his already large orchard next spring. 



Only a few days ago Wm. Foltz delivered some fine winter apples 

 to Diers Bros.' store from his orchard, which has been bearing profit- 

 able crops for years. 



Nick Van Dyke has some fine Ben Davis apple trees in his orchard 

 which produce annually from six to ten bushels per tree. He has also 

 proven his belief in the commercial apple growing industry by planting 

 another large commercial orchard. 



In the Stephen German orchard two miles west of Humphrey sixty- 

 four trees of the Ben Davis, Gano, Winesap, and Janette produced over 

 $300.00 worth of the finest kind of apples for the crop of 1908 (the 

 poor apple year) and this year the crop far exceeded that of last year. 



Dr. Cordon, who, in the past year, visited the most extensive fruit 

 district in the United States to study their methods of growing and 

 marketing the fruit, declares that we have as good a fruit stae as any 

 sate he has seen and signifies his willingness o plant a commercial 

 orchard of ten acres here on the Park Place adjoining Humphrey. The 

 Doctor says, "That fruit is absolutely necessary for the health of a man 

 and that it should for ma part of each meal. The apple is both a food 

 and prolongs the life. The baked apple is the healthiest dish to start 

 breakfast on, and an apple eaten just before retiring for the night will 

 prevent sleeplessness aud act as a tonic and brain food." 



There are scores of other orchards in Platte and adjoining counties 

 which have produced many profitable crops. I do not mean to say, how- 

 ever, that every orchard is profitable, in fact, the profitable orchards 

 are very few, for in so many orchards the wrong varieties are planted. 



The farmers in the earlier days did not know what varieties to 

 plant and in many instances planted varieties not adapted for this climate 

 and often planted too many summer and fall varieties. 



These mistakes are not necessary now when home grown trees can 

 be had and varieties which have been tested and proven profitable; 

 besides, horticulture has made wonderful advances in recent years. 



The nurseries are now building their trees upon more scientific 

 principles and trees procured from up-to-date nurseries now are far 

 better than trees procured in the past when they were propogated in 

 the old and hit-and-miss way. The orchard demonstrations made by 

 our scientific men from the Nebraska Agricultural College and Ex- 

 perimental Stations show that when the right varieties are planted and 

 the orchard rightly managed that no crop is more profitable than the 

 apple crop from the commercial varieties. 



In my travels over the state as deputy oil inspector, the past year. 



