No. 5. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 249 



9. MR. WITTMAN: Now, instead of talking about the work T 

 have clone, or the work I am going to do, I am going to do some work 

 right here. I am going to ask this association to adopt a resolution 

 that next Monday shall be ^'Rooster Day." The National Associa- 

 tion of Poultrymen have fixed Saturday, June 6th, as the day on 

 which all male cliickens not absolutely required for breeding pur- 

 poses, shall be killed, and I propose that we get just a little ahead 

 of them in this State, and make next Monday the day. The reason 

 why hundreds of thousands of eggs will be rendered unfit to eat in 

 a short time, if this is not done, is because fertilization has begun. 

 The Governor of the State of Missouri has officially declared Satur- 

 day, June 6, as "Rooster Day," and I move that we officially desig- 

 nate Monday, June 1, as "Rooster Day" in this State. 



APPLES; STARTING THE YOUNG ORCHARD AND TREAT- 

 MENT OF BEARING TREES 



By SHELDON W. FUNK, Boyertown, Pa. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is good and hot enough 

 this evening. Many of you people have heard me speak along this 

 line, and I don't want to rehash things, so I am going to change ray 

 subject a little tonight, and have a little round table talk, instead of 

 talking to you on the treatment of bearing trees, and tell you some 

 of thethings I found out in my experience as Farm Adviser, As I 

 understand it, the purpose of this meeting is to compare notes and 

 see what we have gained out of our experience as Farm Advisers. It 

 seems to me that the horticultural people get along just a little bit 

 better tlian the other fellows, although I really believe we all agree 

 pretty well, and will agree still better as time goes on. 



The average lecturer has said too much about the pleasure and 

 profit of growing fruit, and not enough about the hard work, and 

 yet there is a whole lot of hard work connected with it. As I go 

 over the State of Pennsylvania, I find men who stick their trees in 

 the ground, and then do nothing more. I think the Institute lec- 

 turer should dwell more upon the fact that there is a whole lot of 

 hard work to be done by the man who wants to succeed. It is very 

 easy to plant trees. I know of men who were planting so many as 

 twelve thousand trees in a single year, and they don't have any ex- 

 perience at all. I know of men who are planting ten, fifteen, twenty 

 or twenty-five acres as an experiment. That is a pretty big experi- 

 ment, and one that is not likely to turn out profitably. Everywhere 

 I have gone, I have found neglected orchards. There is not much 

 work in planting trees but every year the work is tripled, and every 

 year they fall behind, and every year we are getting more insects 

 to fight. It is a whole lot harder to grow fruit today than twenty 

 years ago. The Codling Moth, and the San Jose Scale, and a whole 



