28 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Well, the weather gets hot and 'the weeds and grass begin to grow and steal 

 the moisture from the trees' roots, but there is no time to cultivate and hoe them, 

 for the corn and potatoes must be plowed and harvest and haying are coming on. 

 So the poor trees have to take their chances, and a pool chance it is, if our unsuc- 

 cessful friend gets them. Many of them yield up the ghost before the summer is 

 over; perhaps our friend goes by after harvest and sees how it is, and thinks he will 

 help matters some and digs around the trees some, and kills some of the weeds ; 

 but the ground is so hard and lumpy that he thinks it is too much work to make it 

 fine. Perhaps he hauls a few loads of manure and piles it around the trees so as 

 to make the borer eggs hatch the better. 



He finds out some day during the fall, that the rabbits have been taking 

 the bark off some of the trees as high as they can reach conveniently ; and he 

 declares he must tie those trees upright away, or they will all be ruined. He 

 goes by a neighbor's orchard of young trees that have been properly cared for, and 

 whose trees have grown four or five times as much as his, and he says it beats all 

 what good luck some folks have with trees. When our friend gets his corn out, his 

 orchard isn't fenced, the ground is frozen so he can't drive posts. He says he 

 don't think the cattle will hurt the trees much, so he turns them in ; but the cattle 

 think the end of the limbs taste better than the corn-shucks, and some old cow 

 will be very likely to Imagine that the trees are some enemy she must annihilate 

 if possible, and she generally succeeds. Well, a few of our friend's trees do manage 

 to live through it all, but he tells his neighbors that an orchard don't pay ; that 

 those stories about them bringing in $200 to $300 a year per acre sound fishy ; his 

 trees go untrimmed, until they are altogether too thick, and then they get an over- 

 dose of it ; he lets half his apples fall off" before he goes to picking because he had 

 to get his wheat sowed first; when he takes a load to market he puts them in the 

 wagon loose, and allows his team to tr< t part of the way, and when the shipper 

 sorts out about two- thirds of them, he gives him a good rounding up for being so 

 particular. After all, is it any wonder that our friend is unsuccessful ? 



M. L. Brooks, Cavendish. 



THE FUTURE OF BERRY-GROWING IN MISSOURI FOR THE PUBLIC, 



1 see by the program just received, is the subject that has been given to me 

 to write upon. A great deal might be said on this subject; however, just now, I 

 am so very busy with my berries that I can only use spare moments to write a 

 little at a time, and so cannot do the matter justice. But I think the ones that 

 expect to grow berries in the future for the public would do well by trying to 

 build up a good local trade in the towns within easy distance, rather than to 

 depend upon a shipping trade ; by doing so they will soon find out what kind of 

 fruit the public prefers. Size is not always the quality most sought for by the con- 

 sumers. For church festivals, for instance, a berry of a more medium size gives 

 better satisfaction. Mr. Llewellyn, a merchant in Mexico (who handles my fruit 

 at that place), wrote to me recently : " While on the berry subject 1 will say that 

 size of fruit is not first question; some other points are often more important." 

 The most important points I find is to be prompt, always on time, never disap- 

 point customers, even if you have to put yourself to a little extra trouble ; and 

 above all send good fruit. By so doing you will create confidence ; your customers 

 soon learn that they can depend upon you to get whatever they want, and when 

 wanted; and the one that builds up a trade of that kind in a town is very apt to 

 have a chance to supply it in the future. 



Kespectfully, 



F. LlONBERGKR, HugO, MO. 



