208 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



buds, man.v of tbeiu fiom that tree, and had them prepared as usual 

 and planted in an adjoining Held. The result was that not a single 

 one of there trees came true to his excellent Salway peach. They were 

 the same old kind of Sahvaj which he had attempted to improve. 

 That is simply one set of results. A\'e have records on the other 

 side. But it shows the uureliabilit}' of our present knowledge along 

 this important line, and emphasizes the fact that we cannot yet 

 safely generalize in many branches of horticulture. 



But, you say, what is the orchardist to do? He is at a loss as 

 to what is the proper soil, the proper fertilizer, the be&t culture, nor 

 does he know much about the influence of selection. Yet his very 

 existence depends upon the correctness of his methods. How shall 

 he find what correct methods are? First and foremost, the success- 

 ful orchardist must be an experimenter in the true sense. If our 

 present horticulture knowledge is convincing on any one thing, it 

 is this — that the orchard itself is the ouy safe source of information 

 concerning itself. Experience elsewhere is valuable as suggesting 

 what one may expect in his orchard; but most methods should be 

 first tried on a small scale to determine their probable effect before 

 adopting them, widely under new conditions. This procedure prop- 

 erly followed out cannot fail to lead to success, and constitutes what 

 we mean by "experimenting in the true sense." To make it clearer, 

 let us look at the other type of experiments. Some people think 

 they are experimenting when they are trying a given plant food or 

 fertilizer over a whole field, and then looking for results the first 

 year. If, perchance, they get a good yield, they attribute it all to 

 the fertilizer. They laud it to the skies, and recommend it to all 

 their friends as the only proper thing to use, regardless of soil or 

 other conditions. If they don't get results at once, they condemn it. 

 How do they know that it was not the season that made the good 

 showing? How do they know that it was the fertilizer which gave 

 them results? How can they expect to judge on a basis of so short a 

 time? That is not experimenting in any sense. The orchardist must 

 become an exi)erimenter in the true sense. It is his only salvation, 

 and it will benefit him as well as his orchard. 



Now, in the light of what I have said so far, it is practically im- 

 possible — it is entirely impossible — to outline a reliable general 

 method of orchard treatment. One might say a good many things 

 about the best method, and then find it not the best method for any 

 particular locality. This is the very cause of many of our failures. 

 A man is induced to adopt and hold ill-suited methods and varieties 

 because they have succeeded with some one^^else. Modern treatment 

 of an apple orchard is tlie experimental treatment, and the wise 

 orchardist will ])in his faith to none other. To make this still clearer, 

 I wish to read the following quotation: "Where a grower wishes to 

 lay down his fruit plantation to grass, it would be very easy, in most 

 cases, for him to lay down a portion of it only, in the first place, 

 and ascertain what the effect on his trees is. and whether it would 

 be advisable or not for him to treat his whole plantation in a sim- 

 ilar way. 



"Such simple experiments or trials are not beyond the means or 

 capacity of any fruit grower of average ability," and the marvel is 

 that they are so rarely made, and that one whose existence depends 

 upon the correctness of their practice should not adopt the most 



