SUMMER MEETING. 27 



old had apples everywhere from a peck to five bushels. I measured 

 the apples from the best tree and it was exactly five bushels. I never 

 had a failure ou the orchard for 15 years; I had light crops and heavy 

 crops, but never a failure. I am not boasting of my orchard. There 

 are others I know of that are as successful. I know one 12 miles 

 from St. Joseph where a man planted 80 trees per acre on six acres. 

 They are mostly Ben Davis. After he had had it planted 18 years he 

 told me he had received a little over $1200 for the sales. I know we 

 have an old fashioned orchard, apples that are old fashioned, that never 

 paid for the ground they grew on and never will. I have two Baldwin's 

 20 years old. One never has borne a bushel of apples, and the other, 

 perhaps, has borne two barrels all told. 



We have the last year been going through the school of experi- 

 ence, we have had all kinds of discouragements and backsets, and 

 failures ; but men in North Missouri who have followed along with the 

 tide and kept up with the leading varieties to plant and have planted 

 those choice kinds ou their farms on the bluffs and hills, especially 

 near streams where it was well drained, where they have planted good 

 varieties, there has never been a complete failure for ten years — or 

 twenty years, I will say — though the crops have varied considerably 

 from lime to time. So now when we are having such peculiar weather^ 

 and have failures once or twice, we must be willing to bear it without 

 complaint. These are times of adversity, but they will not last always. 

 We must buoy up and bear it for the present. It will come around all 

 right in the end. I agree with the President in his idea of the neces- 

 sity for the continuous and persistent care of the trees from the time 

 they are planted, clear up to the time they are given up. I think that 

 is the only way to have them produce the best results. I don't con- 

 sider that I gave my crops the opportunity he did, but I got good 

 crops. I hoed around them, and raked them and cultivated them. It 

 will pay a man to spend something on his orchard, even if it costs a 

 good deal, to obtain the best results. But with the right kind of treat- 

 ment we can successfully cultivate an orchard at very little expense. 

 There are many other things that I might say, but I don't want to take 

 up the time of others. I will say in regard to pruning that I would 

 rather have no pruning at all than too much. A little is good, and very 

 necessary; but too much is very injurious. 



Mr. Hartzell — I will ask Mr. Lamm if he plowed the ground first 

 before planting his orchard. I am in favor of plowing the ground be- 

 fore planting the trees, as well as of cultivating it afrer they are planted. 

 If we would have a successful growth of an orchard, whether we cut 

 them down or let them grow old, we must be careful in regard to the 



