^0 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



such poor land, though it was not the best farm land. But I thought 

 it was the best kind of land for a fruit farm. Soiae people laughed at 

 me, and said I would starve if I depended on it for a living. The land 

 would not bring much corn. But I found it had not been plowed. I 

 got it and plowed it and planted my orchard. I planted it in small 

 fruit. Out of the first crop I sold fruit to one of the men who had pre- 

 dicted that I would starve out. He left the country and I am there. 

 I own the same place. I raised small fruit. When the grasshoppers 

 came I borrowed money at 15 per cent, and in the 24 years I have 

 lived here, I have paid Out $5000 interest. 



I will say that the fruit business, in my experience, has proved it 

 can beat 10 or 15 per cent interest, for when I was in debt the heavi- 

 est I paid that amount of interest. I sold, one year, $200 worth of 

 Wild Goose plums, $200 worth of berries, $1800 worth of peaches, and 

 $800 worth of apples. I also sold $200 worth of hogs that was grown 

 on the waste clover and fruit. It may seem real egotistical for me to 

 tell this ; but I understood that we were relating our experiences, and 

 I am just telling mine. I take it that if a man starts out with little or 

 nothing, raises a family, feeds them, gives them a show in the schools, 

 pays his honest debts, and comes out out of debt, it proves it beats 10 

 or 15 per cent interest, for if it did not, and he was paying that inter- 

 est, he would have gone under. I said awhile ago that money from an 

 orchard was made by having varieties that would ship well, and sell 

 well, and grow well. I was talking to a gentleman in our part of the 

 country about rich land for orchards. He said he never would plant 

 an orchard in that kind of land — not a commercial orchard, any way — 

 in rich prairie land. He said that kind of land is not fit for an orchard. 

 I said I helped this same man put out a family orchard of 100 trees, 

 and we took pains that we should have it planted in the richest spot of 

 his prairie laud, and at the end of eleven years he had never had three 

 bushels of apples from any tree. I planted an orchard on different 

 kind of land the next year, and got a lot of apples, and many of them 

 are as large again as those on the rich land. You should take your 

 best and richest land for something else. It is likely it is too rich to 

 raise a good orchard. I believe when an orchard once gets to bearing 

 it is hard to get it too rich, but up to the time the orchard has attained 

 its growth I think rich land is too rich for it. So I would not advise 

 a man to take his best and richest land and plant it in an orchard. If 

 he has a part of his farm that is bluff and worn, I think that is a good 

 place for his orchard. 



Mr. 1 know there are some people who raise orchards 



in our country who are opposed to the honey bee. In fact, I have read 



