254 A.NNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



shrouded with sii])erstiti()ns and foolish theories without any sense. or 

 foundation. Once in a wliile they hit it but oftener missed it. I re- 

 member about that lime 1 was secretary of our State iiorlicultural 

 Societj', and one of the questions which I put on the program was 

 this: "Will it pay to plant an apple orchard on land worth |100 an 

 acre?" and leading horticulturists of our State discussed this ques- 

 tion and decided it would not; that the apple crop was so uncertain 

 and when we received a crop the price was poor; that the part of wis- 

 dom was to plant lands of no value for anything else and what was 

 received would be clear gain. But at the present time we feel that the 

 best way to receive a profitable return from land worth one or two 

 hundred dollars an acre is to plant an apple orchard. 



What has brought about this change? About the time I speak of 

 scientists, agriculturists and orchardists began to study these prob- 

 lems. They began to realize the fallacy of laying down hard and fast 

 rules: such as soav your turnips on the 2.5th of July, and other falla- 

 cies; and they began to understand that we must study the underly- 

 ing principles and know more of the requirements of our trees and 

 then to try to provide these requirements under the most available 

 conditions, and the progress has been such in the last 15 to 20 years 

 that horticulture has risen from an occupation of uncertainty and 

 mj'stery and unsatisfaction and has now attained a state where it is 

 considered one of the safest and most profitable of commercial ven- 

 tures, and business men and men of all ranks and professions of the 

 city are beginning to realize not only its pleasures but its profits. I 

 think we had a splendid demonstration of that this morning and just 

 as soon as we have such a young man as Mr. Funk in every township 

 of Ohio and Pennsylvania then horticulture will make wonderful ad- 

 vance and will become one of the most profitable and interesting in- 

 dustries in our country. 



We need more men who will study the needs of the trees. Dr. 

 Koberts, of Cornell, was once asked by a dairyman how a certain 

 ration or combination of foods would affect the dairy cow. His 

 answer was: "Don't ask me; ask the cow." We want our trees. It 

 is well enough to ask each other what food to give the orchard, but 

 after all we must ask the trees themselves; we must study nature 

 closer and watch the effect on the trees. The experiment station and 

 agricultural societ}' can make suggestions and can help wonderfully, 

 and T do not think anybody can attain the highest measure of success, 

 can do himself justice, unless he gets all the aid possible from them. 

 Life is too short to try to dig these things out for himself, but he must 

 take their suggestion and put them into i)ractice. The experiment sta- 

 tion can give us the verdict but we have to execute it ourselves. We 

 must modify all their requisites to suit our indiyidual cases. 



I was much interested in the statement of Mr. Funk that while he 

 would not advise putting manure on the young peach orchard it was 

 all right later on when a particular case was cited. In handling the 

 peach orchard we must have a good growth early and cover crop later 

 in season. I am not afraid of excessive growth early in the season. 

 I have a bearing Elberta orchard, bearing moderately in 1909, and we 

 gave it a liberal application of manure from the steers sheds, re- 

 inforced with acid phosphate. We got a great crop in 1910. This year 

 we are putting on the manure again not on the young trees but the 

 mature trees, and have another heavy crop on the trees ; so if we say 



