106 STATE HORTICULTURAL. SOCIETY. 



To give statements of exceptional profits in fruitgrowing might prove 

 misleading, but I will say that it is a common experience, with orchards 

 and plantations of small fruit, to find some year in which the profits pay 

 all the original value of the land and all the expenses of growing it, from a 

 single crop. In the case of some fruits, notably gooseberries, which are 

 the cheapest of all fruits to grow, rarely costing over ten cents per bushel, 

 I have seen a plantation pay for itself, land and all, each year for five years 

 in succession. 



A word of caution might not come amiss here. The country is full of 

 disappointments in horticulture because growers have depended on decep- 

 tive plate-books and glib-tongued, lying tree peddlers for their horti- 

 cultural knowledge, buying unheard-of and impossible varieties, paying 

 out their hard-earned wheat money for brush-heap trash at three or four 

 times the price of well-known profitable varieties. Of course, there are 

 such things as reliable agents of reliable nurseries, but they are never 

 selling nor offering impossible things, and the only safety lies in dealing 

 with well-known and reliable nurseries. 



WHAT AN ENERGETIC YOUNG MAN MAY DO. 



A few horticultural possibilities might be mentioned. It is possible 

 for a young man to purchase a farm and pay for it easily by a little intel- 

 ligent planting and care of fruit. It is possible for the farmer who is 

 heavily in debt, and sees no hope in farm crops, to pay the mortgage by 

 fruit or vegetable growing. It is possible to keep the boys at home and 

 give them a good start in life by giving them the use of a few acres of 

 land and helping them to get it well set in fruit; and I will guarantee that 

 in a few years some of them will be able to show a better annual bank 

 account than the " old man " with his 160 or more acres. So, be careful 

 or you may catch the fever and go to growing " briars and trees " and 

 " garden sass." 



Some one asks, how will this be, when everybody goes to growing fruit, 

 and there is an over-production ? My reply is, that was the question twenty 

 years ago, and that condition has not arrived yet, and I see no occasion for 

 alarm until our own state can get all the good fruit her people wish to 

 use, which time has not yet arrived. Of course, our great city market, 

 Chicago, is often overloaded for a few days, as was the case with grapes 

 last season; but who is to blame? The good people of Lawton grew an 

 enormous quantity of grapes last year, and dumped most of them into 

 Chicago. At the same time, some of them returned, passing through 

 their town on the way to Kalamazoo, Jackson, and Grand Rapids, while 

 small towns all over the state had none. 



The conditions necessary to profitable fruit-culture are easily enumerated, 

 but not so easily understood. Therefore, no man should enter the busi- 

 ness extensively at first, unless he has prepared himself by securing the 

 fullest information obtainable regarding varieties, his location, transpor- 

 tion facilities, markets, etc. Where these conditions are fully understood 

 success should be almost certain. 



The plan of planting large acreages to specialties is unsafe for begin- 

 ners, and is only advisable after the owner has demonstrated its success on 

 his soil, and under his management. Better plant several varieties at first, 

 reserving enough land to make extended plantings of the successful kinds. 



