No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 633 



trade. Our own home-grown fruit is always to be preferred to the 

 Western fruit. Then, about the other side, why pay a dollar and 

 a half to two and a half a bushel? Apples at a dollar a bushel are 

 high enough to give us a splendid profit, and yet leave the fruit 

 within reach of the average consumer who cannot afford to pay 

 .these exhorbitant prices. 



I have spoken principally about apple orchards, but many of the 

 methods apply equally well to other fruits. With the cherry, our 

 method is about the same, with the exception that we can start 

 cultivation a little earlier. You hear about cherries and peaches 

 wanting a thin soil. That is all nonsense. They must have a soil 

 that will feed them, just the same as the other fruits. In the peach 

 orchards, we attack the curculio by spraying when the spring comes, 

 and we also spray for the plum rot, and in our orchards they have 

 been practically overcome by spraying. 



A YEAE'S WORK IN DEMONSTEATION ORCHARDS 



By PROFESSOR H. A. SURFACE, Economic Zoologist. 



It should be very encouraging to us to see the progress along the 

 lines of horticulture, because of the justifiably high rank that East- 

 ern grown fruits, and especially Pennsylvania fruits, are taking. 

 Tree planting has increased largely all over the State, not only in 

 the commercial line, as shown by that magnificent exhibit over in 

 the hall, but thousands of individual growers all over the State 

 show a high rate of progress in many difi'ereut counties. Y"ou and 

 I know that a few years ago, we had dark days of discouragement. 

 Planting in Pennsylvania was reduced to the lowest possible stage, 

 for the discouragement was justifiable. The orchards in Pennsyl- 

 vania were being destroyed by the San Jose scale, and by other 

 pests. It was necessary to do something to eradicate them, and 

 to do it quickly and thoroughly. Many and many a man was tear- 

 ing out his trees by the roots in the belief that they were hopelessly 

 aft'ected. It was the duty of the Department of Agriculture, through 

 the Bureau of Zoology, to try to overcome this. We commenced 

 publishing bulletins telling the people how to spray. It was good, 

 as far as it went, but it did not go far enough, so we were compelled 

 to go out into the highways and by-ways and compel them to see. 

 There were many persons who were willing to try it on their owm 

 responsibility, but many of them were so hopeless and discouraged 

 that they did not even care to try. To overcome this, we had to 

 go out and do the work ourselves, and risk our reputations on the 

 result of the work. And when we did go out, it seemed, as one 

 man said, that we were expected to take the worst and most dilapi- 

 dated orchards, and make them perfect specimens. You cannot do 

 that any more than you can take an old, kicking bronco and make 

 of him a lady's horse ; but where we have had conditicms that enabled 

 us to do good work, we have had good results. 



