524 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



plants, and seeds, and some to spare, as well as Western New York? Most 

 assuredly we can ; any one doubting this will please visit some of the nur- 

 series, beautiful gardens and well stocked green-houses that are springing up 

 all around us ; andfor further proof allow me to refer to the two great expo- 

 sitions held in this city. The Horticultural department was under the direc- 

 tion of the State Pomological Society, whose active members were largely from 

 the Grand Eiver Valley, and whose exhibitions were pronounced by good 

 judges second to none in the United States. It is evident, then, that we have 

 a soil and climate that are favorable to our operations, and it opens a broad 

 field, commercially, to the enterprising horticulturist, surrounded, as we are, 

 by a large territory that is fast developing its resources, and through the intel- 

 ligence of its citizens will furnish a market for all classes of horticultural 

 stock for many years to come ; hence we see horticulture commercially 

 beckon us onward. 



Let us glance for a moment from a higher standpoint at its moral influence, 

 — and it can only be a glance, for it is beyond the power of man to get a full 

 view of the immense influence brought to bear on the mind of man through a 

 practical knowledge of horticulture. The Hon. Judge Graves, of the Supreme 

 Court, in his remarks before the State Pomological Society, at one of the 

 evening meetings held in this city during the last fair, said : " Having many 

 years' experience in the law courts of our country, I have never yet seen a live 

 horticulturist, one engaged in the cultivation of fruits and flowers, arraigned 

 in court for vice or crime." This beautiful compliment should induce every 

 man and woman in the land to know something of this elevating science, if it 

 is only the planting of a currant tree or the care of a single plant in the win- 

 dow. It is better than nothing. It may be the commencement of a noble 

 work. Why, I believe if there was a horticultural society organized in every 

 town in the land, and the people could be induced to meet and discuss the 

 interest and growth of fruits and flowers and the beautifying of their homes, it 

 would do more to stay the tide of crime and vice than one-half of the so-called 

 reform societies of the present day. Its influence hews off the ragged corners 

 and smoothes down the rough surface of humanity, and the man or woman 

 thus engaged becomes more observing of natural laws and nearer Nature's 

 God. Here, then, gentlemen, is a work for us to do, a great missionary work 

 of no small importance; and here I would kindly invite you, if you are a suc- 

 cessful orchardist or vineyardist, please to give us your mode of success. If you 

 are a florist, and succeed in growing a rose tree, a fuchsia or geranium better 

 than your neighbors, please to tell us how you do it; or if you are a gardener, 

 and have the ability to lay out and beautify our homes, please to let us hear 

 from you. Don't be selfish about these things, and shut yourself under a 

 bushel, but shine forth bright as the morning sun to enlighten the pathway of 

 your neighbor on to success. 



HOW TO PICK AND PACK APPLES, AND WHERE TO KEEP THEM, AND 



WHEN TO SELL THEM. 



-AN ESSAY READ BEFORE THE GRAND RIVER VALLEY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, TUES- 

 DAY, JANUARY 5, 1875, BY P. W. JOHNSON, OP WALKER. 



There is no doubt that a lack of success in keeping fruit with many fruit 



