632 ANNtjAL REPORT Oi' TlIJS Off. Doc. 



we are giuwiiig fertility right there in the orchard, and the third 

 stage, when the trees begin to occupy the ground completely, we 

 depend on hauling in all the vegetable matter we can get — leaves, 

 and straw, and manure or anything that will rot and become vege- 

 table matter. 



In regard to spraying, 1 hesitate a little to give you my methods 

 of spraying, but 1 do so, to show you what can be done under favor- 

 able conditions. ^Ve have only been spraying twice a year. Per- 

 haps you will say we don't get results, but as a statement of what 

 we get, at the last Ohio show, the best we have had in Ohio, with 

 a carload and a half of fruit on exhibition, we got thirty-nine prizes, 

 thirty-six tirst and three second, out of forty-three exhibits. That 

 was secured by spraying twice. Now, dcm't go home and do this, 

 and lose your fruit, and then say I advised you to do so. We have 

 been spraying for the past twenty-five years. We spray once, just 

 before the blossoms come, with lime and sulphur, and then once 

 when the blossoms fall. We reach the tree from four or five dif- 

 ferent sides. We never consider a tree sprayed until it is sprayed 

 from both sides, with the wind blowing that way, and we do thor- 

 ough work. The Experiment Station did some thinning in my or- 

 chard, and Prof. Green said there was less than one-half of one 

 per cent, of sprayed fruit that showed any signs of any disease or 

 worms. That was not because of two sprayings alone but because 

 we have been spraying for twenty-five years. In the southern part 

 of the state they have Bitter Kot and must spray more, but we have 

 not had any trouble with it in our part of the state. 



The next thing I want to talk about is thinning. It is impossible 

 to grow a high grade of fruit without thinning. You will have nub- 

 bins. Suppose you have a tree bearing a thousand apples; is it 

 more work to pick five hundred apples in July and five hundred in 

 October than to pick them all at one time? That tree will be in 

 better shape and you will get a better price for your fruit by the two 

 pickings. 



When my orchards were beginning to come into bearing, I be- 

 gan to look around among the commission men. One of them told 

 me he had bought fruit in one year from a hundred and ten or- 

 chards, paying an average price of |1.00 per barrel, but by the 

 time the storage, the freight, and the commission, etc. were added, 

 those apples must retail in winter to the consumer at $1.00 per 

 bushel. The result was that when I started in the business, I put 

 up my own storage house. Then I went to the leading grocers of 

 the nearby towns and showed them my samples. Now I make it a 

 point to have something a little better than the Ben Davis to ofiier 

 I have never used the Ben Davis apple in my life, until last year I 

 planted a thousand of them and top-worked them. We arranged 

 that I was to ship these apples on telephone orders, and then I said 

 "we had better speak about the price." He said "you set your own 

 price, and I will add a little profit to it for myself, and that will 

 make the selling price." I have always set the price on everything 

 that has gone out of my orchards. You want to be sure not to rob 

 your customer the first time, and then he will come back. I have 

 people come twenty and thirty miles in their automobiles to buy 

 their fruit direct from the orchard. By dealing direct with the con- 

 sumer, you can establish a very profitable and desirable class of 



