No 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 433 



carts and theu they all come down and the crop is gone, simply be 

 cause of imperfect fertilization, but it takes very severe and un 

 favorable weather to hurt cherries after they once bloom. This 

 year we had a great disappointment in the buds being injured by the 

 frost. They had lots of blossoms, but we are going to learn to look 

 at things. Looking inside the blossoms, we found the petals and 

 the leaves there, but the little man with the red coat and the stone 

 in his throat was missing. In good blossoms we usually find the 

 pistil guarded and protected by the stamen in their yellow hoods- 

 and straight jackets. He was missing this year and we said it is 

 all olf with those blossoms. 



I like the cherry tree because it stands up straight. You are 

 talking here about whether apples should be planted deep in order 

 to make them withstand the wind, but you u'ever saw a cherry tree 

 do anything but stand up right straight. It is straight and strong. 

 It is a long lived tree, but the English Morello is susceptible to the 

 leaf blight and shothole fungus. I spray the English Morello tree 

 two or three times: once thoroughly before the blossoms open; once 

 just after they fall and probably once again if the weather is warm 

 and wet. But the Montmorency I don't spray at all. I have trees 

 that are about twenty years old, that have borne good crops, that 

 I never had to spray and that's one mark in its favor. 



I am afraid you will go to planting sour cherries when I tell you 

 they are not attacked by the scale. In my orchard I grow apples, 

 pears, peaches and plums, and the only thing I have not had to 

 spray for San Jos^ Scale is sour cherries and Kieffer pears. 



I made a mistake in my early planting. I set them fifteen by fif- 

 teen, which is too close. When they were about fifteen years old 

 I had to cut off part of the tree, as the under branches were dying 

 in somewhat. I decided to head them back and about six years ago 

 they were cut back severely, so as to form an entirely new head to 

 suit my own ideas. This brought them down within step-ladder 

 reach and the lower limbs are again bearing fruit. Ever since that 

 I have cut back the entire new growth. With my later planting 

 I allow them to reach a height of 12 or 14 feet and I say "stop," 

 and I hold them right there. The lower limbs begin to bear fruit 

 although on the fifteen foot planting the limbs reach together so 

 that it is difficult to get through without knocking off some of the 

 cherries. I now plant my cherries eighteen feet apart each wav. 



Now as to picking and marketing. Of course, the picking of cher- 

 ries is a bug-bear. When we talked about planting so many cherries 

 the question was raised, where are you going to get the help in 

 picking time. 



When our first orchard began to bear an old friend came into 

 the orchard and looked up through the rows and said, "Boys you 

 will never pick half of these cherries." Well, of course, it does 

 take a good deal of help, but it comes in vacation time, and we only 

 live two and one-half miles from Geneva, and can get women and 

 children. I think it is all right to stop child labor in factories. I 

 think this country has been cursed with a curse in that matter and 

 1 think it ought t'o be stopped. I think it is wrong to pen them up 



28—6—1907. 



