No. 7. DEPARTMEN'P OP AGRICULTURE. 235 



cultured intellect and judgment above the ordinary. He has no 

 plans for his guidance. He must be his own architect. You may 

 argue that he has one of the greatest of all architects, one that gives 

 him the most elaborate plans — ^Nature — the great architect of the 

 universe. To some extent this is true. If you go into the virgin 

 forest you frequently find the most beautiful trees, tall, erect^, ma- 

 jestic in their strength, symmetrical in every outline, not a point left 

 to be changed that would add to their atrractiveness, but the horti- 

 culturist who would benefit by following the teachings of this great 

 architect must be a deep student of nature studies. She guards her 

 secrets well, and only those who by close observation and deep 

 thought delve beneath the surface are permitted to see and under- 

 stand her intricate workings. Perhaps in the early days when 

 Adam, the first horticulturist, was placed in the Garden of Eden, 

 it may not have required any particular skill on the })art of Adam to 

 give shape or in any way aid in the growth of the tree or the develop- 

 ment of the most luscious fruit. An uneducated mind is satisfied 

 with ordinary results. The child, if nothing better is in sight, is 

 satisfied with little sour fruit growing in the hedgerow. 



But we are living in a progressive age. The citizens of every town 

 and city are becoming more cultured. Such products as supplied 

 these cities in the early days of our forefathers, no longer satisfy the 

 citizens of to-day. They have tasted of better things. Their natures 

 crave them and they demand them. We cannot adapt the people 

 to our products. We must produce such goods as the educated 

 tastes of the people demand; and of all the various products there 

 are none that have a more rapid increase in demand than for high 

 grade fancy fruit. This is no longer a luxury, but has become an 

 actual necessity. It is becoming as staple as wheat or any other 

 product. Thirty years back when I planted an apple orchard of 15 

 acres^ my neighbors wanted to know what I was going to do with the 

 fruit, claiming they had to leave their's rot, having no sale for it. 



How is the outlook at the present time? Market prices for choice 

 fruit are higher and the demand greater. Never in the history of our 

 country were the prospects brighter than at present, for the future, 

 for the intelligent and industrious horticulturist. In riding over the 

 country it is a sad and painful sight to see the rapid decay of the or- 

 chards on large and otherwise thrifty farms which 40 or 50 years ago 

 had large, good bearing orchards, now have but remnants remaining; 

 isolated trees scattered over large areas. These trees and parts of 

 trees, long past their period of usefulness more through neglect and 

 starvation than by old age^, are left as feeding grounds for the tent 

 caterpillar which defoliate them year after year leaving their limbs 

 exposed to the hot scorching sun, killing the bark, leaving them a 

 prey to the flat-headed borer which soon destroys the little life that 



