No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 141 



in inilk), hut in cleaning market products, as well as the conveyance, 

 and wouldn't be wasted on the persons of some going to market. 



I believe in patronizing the barber occasionally and in wearing 

 a clean, decent suit of clothes, al«o in the use of brush and blacking 

 before starting on a market trip. We pick all apples carefully and 

 sometimes choice lots are lubbed with a cloth to make them more 

 attractive. Necessarily the expenses in doing business in tliis way 

 are heavy, and whether the retail prices obtained are more or less 

 c(»n)|)en»ating than wholesaling or sending on commission I am 

 unable to state, but about the latter metliod serious doubts are 

 entertained fiom a very small experience. One of the difficulties 

 is to get reliable help at times, and all the time it is difficult to ob- 

 tain help that can be depended upon to do things as they should be 

 done, because the average help considers the time put in of more 

 importance, than the labor performed, going on the principle of 

 "come day, go day, God send Sunday," a holiday or a picnic. 



For two successive seasons the peach crop in our section was al- 

 most a total failure. In February, 1899, being very cold, following a 

 few moderate days of a drizzling rain, froze a coating of ice on the 

 twigs, either smothering or freezing the buds. Last spring, again in 

 March a sudden change of temperature after a mild spell, destroyed 

 almost all the fruit buds. In a few sheltered locations some buds es- 

 caped and a few peaches were obtained, but only an insignificant 

 quantity. After the freeze of two years ago I topped all my trees to 

 short arms and succeeded in forcing a new growth, which were thrifty 

 and full budded, and what are left are yet in good shape to produce 

 fruit with favorable weather conditions. So far the Iron Mountain 

 and Old Mixon are the most hardy and less affected with yellows 

 and fruit rot of the various sorts growing. Kegarding diseases and 

 injurious insects, we have in my section I think about all that are 

 named in the catalogues, so if any entomologist here or elsewhere 

 desires to increase or form a cabinet he might do well to visit us 

 and collect all the bugs, beetles, butterflies and worms found, and be 

 welcome to them without money and without price. 



In the absence of the writer, the following was read by the Secre- 

 tary: 



HORTICULTURAL DISPLAYS AT FAIRS. 



Bv Oliver D. Schock. Hamhurg. Iirr]<s Cn., Pa. 



The w^onderful old myths which the great scholars expound, telling 

 us that the forces of nature were the gods of the ancients, as, for 

 example, identifying the sun with Phoebus Apollo; the moon with 



