60 STATE HORTICULTURAL. SOCIETY. 



Mr. W. D. Maekham of Hart: The virtue of the peach stock is, it 

 provides no suckers, but a cleaner, healthier tree. 



Mr. H. Palmee of Hart: I have pi am trees both on peach and 

 plum roots. On light soil the peach root is the better, but on heavy soil 

 the plum root is all right. 



Mr. J. B. HouK of Ludington: Can we grow young plum trees too 

 fast, and set them too deep on heavy soil ? 



Mr. Markham: Some varieties do not take well to the peach root, and 

 the Lombard is one of them. 



Mr. WiLLARD: There is no question but we may grow young trees too 

 fast; a moderate growth is the better, the tree being hardier and in all 

 respects more desirable. 



Mr. HouK said he had nearly destroyed 300 plum trees by heavy 

 manuring and quick growth. The Bradshaw stood it the best, the Bavay 

 next, but the others were mainly killed by the winter. 



THE season's CEOP. 



Secretary B-eid followed with extensive reports of the status of the fruit 

 crop in all parts of the state. It revealed a nearly total failure of the 

 apple crop, save in the Grand Traverse region, while otherwise the pros- 

 pect was good for fair to full crops, grapes being unusually abundant. 



In course of a crop report for his section, Mr. B. F. Pixley of St. 

 Joseph proposed the following: 



FEETILIZEES NEEDED FOE WORN SOILS. 



I hope the society will give some attention to the matter of fertilizer for 

 our fruit trees. Probably seven tenths of all the land in fruit in this 

 region has been cultivated to fruits for the past twenty or thirty years, 

 and the large proportion of poor and imperfect specimens we yearly find 

 among our fruits is undoubtedly owing to a lack of potash and phosphoric 

 acid in the soil, which has measurably been exhausted by the constant 

 cropping. This fact admitted, the vital question is, how can these elements 

 be the most easily and economically supplied to the soil again? By corre- 

 spondence I have learned that muriate of potash, eighty per cent, pure, 

 could be delivered here at $47 per ton, 2,000 pounds, in carload lots; 

 superphosphate at about $20 per ton, and nitrate of soda at $55, and 

 screened hard- wood unleached ashes from Canada at $9.50 per ton. 



Perhaps some of our scientific members can tell us which of the above 

 would be the best for the money. That is what we want to know. Then 

 we can club together and order in car lots, and use enough to do some 

 good. I believe that with proper fertilization, and judicious spraying, 

 just as good fruits and abundant crops can be grown here for all time as 

 have been grown here for the past twenty-five years. 



It is the climate that made this locality a successful fruitgrowing region. 

 That, aided by the virgin soil, produced those beautiful, high-colored and 



