Ho. 7. t>ELPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 553 



bis friends, planted three times as many varieties as lie should. In 

 commercial orcharding keep the number of varieties down to a very 

 few of the best for your location. 



Another thing we are up against is the advice of our friends. 

 Then the nurseries give us mixed varieties; and there are so many 

 old favorites that we would like to have that the nursery gets in 

 some very good work, and nine times out of ten, between the advice 

 of your friends, and the wiles of the nurseryman, you plant twice 

 as many varieties as you should. 



Then there is another consideration. Nearly always our trees 

 come to us in poor condition, due to cheap packing and bad hand- 

 ling by the railroad company, and then we sit down and write the 

 nurseryman that his trees are bad. Yet no doubt they were first 

 class trees when he shipped them, and yet often reach you all dried 

 up, and with apparently no life. Instead of sitting down and writ- 

 ing to the nurseryman — it will do no good anyway; the next lot will 

 be just as bad — bury the trees in a moist, cool, shady place for a 

 few days, give them the moisture they need, then in a week dig 

 up and plant and tend carefully, and 95 per cent, will probably 

 grow. One of my best pear trees lay root up in the sun for eight 

 or ten days; I buried it for a week, and then took it up and planted 

 it, and there it is standing, as fine a tree as you want to see. So 

 don't worry every time you get a dried-out nursery tree. Don't cuss 

 at the nurseryman too much. Nine times out of ten it will not 

 accomplish your purpose, while intelligent handling will bring re- 

 sults. 



Then, we are up against small fields, and unsuitable locations. 

 It pleases me to hear you people laud the high quality of Pennsyl- 

 vania apples; it is the same thing with Vermont and Michigan, and 

 everywhere else. Each man believes he has the best fruit right there 

 in his native state. That is a good indication; in order to succeed 

 you have got to believe in yourself. In order to succeed best you 

 will probably have to work right near where you were born. There 

 are some good things farther on, sometimes, and when you get 

 there, they are just a little farther on, and a little farther on again, 

 and so you could go on until you land in the Pacific Ocean, but nine 

 times out of ten you will find the best place right within ten miles 

 from where you were born. Of course, you are having a pretty hard 

 time, especially if you take hold of the old farm and try to make 

 something out of it, but you must win out if you work hard with 

 your brains and try to fit yourself into your surroundings. I saw 

 an advertisement the other day for a man to undertake the sale of 

 a wonderful patent medicine, warranted to be profitable to the un- 

 dertaker, and I want to assure you, young men, and old men, widows 

 and old maids, and the whole of you, that if you undertake to fol- 

 low the ways of this society, it will work along the same lines. It 

 is not all honey, and it is not all vinegar. There is a wonderful lot 

 of pleasure in fruit culture — in finding and overcoming the obstacles 

 in the way. I find successful horticulturists all over America, and 

 they are not the ones who started on Easy Street; they are the men 

 who started out determined to succeed and even under adverse con- 

 ditions they did succeed; they know there is something in the soil 



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