168 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



L. A. Goodman — This question of over-production may just as 

 well be examined carefullj- and honestly. There is no question but 

 that so many millions of trees have been planted that there will be 

 portions of our country where it will not pay to gather them. There is 

 danger of overdoing this matter, unless we can get the help of our 

 transportatian companies to see the matter in its correct light. If they 

 will move our fruit as cheaply as they do our wheat or corn or lumber^ 

 we can fill our markets full of fruits all the time at reasonable prices 

 (even cheap prices) ; and when we can do this we will see the demand 

 so increase that we cannot supply it. You may be sure that we can sell 

 an hundred barrels of apples to the consumers for $1.50 per barrel, 

 where we can sell one for 84.50 per barrel. If we can give them plenty 

 of good fruit at low prices, they will use all we can grow. The trans- 

 portation companies have this matter in their hands, to either make it a 

 success or to choke it to death. We must use every effort, therefore, 

 to get their assistance. 



Question — What shall I do with stunted four and six-year-old trees 

 to restore them to vigor. 



L. A. Goodman — Cut back very severely. If very much stunted, 

 cut them off at the ground. If you can get a good sprout from the 

 tree and let only one new shoot grow, ydli would soon have a new 

 orchard. I would plant one good two-year-old tree in preference to 

 older stunted trees. 



J. C. Evans — The hospital may do for a sick man, but the only way 

 to treat a sick tree is to take it out and burn it. 



LESSONS OF THE YEAR. 



This is emphatically an age of progress, and in horticulture, as in every other 

 occupation, there are new ways of doing things, new ideas. Along every line 

 there are new lesEons to be learned. Only the bigot ever reaches perfection 8nd 

 has no more to learn. But when in need of counsel or advice, good horticulturists 

 avoid this class and consult with those who are ever on the lookout for better 

 kinds to plant, better ways of planting, cultivating, gathering and marketing. 



We want live, practical men, who are constantly adding to their store of 

 knowledge the lessons to be learned by each passing year. 



The hardest lesson learned the past year by our horticulturists is that even in 

 Holt county, the land of big red apples, where pears, cherries, plums and all 

 kinds of small fruit grow to perfection, with a soil capable of enduring dry or wet, 

 in every way equal to the best, lying as it does just between the blizzards of the 

 north and the sleets and slop of the winters farther south, bounded on the east by 

 the Nodaway and on the west by the Missouri rivers— we have an abundance of 

 water, timber and stone— but even here in this favored land we may have an off 

 year in fruits. Our fruit trees bloomed last spring in a cold rain-storm, which 

 lasted about six weeks— the temperature often near the freezing point— consequently 

 the habit of eating apples is no longer fashionable up our way, and I think we will 



