FORTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 9 



many varieties works against the grower from the fact that buyers prefer 

 large lots of a few varieties rather than small lots of many varieties. 

 And yet after my experience I should not advise any one to confine him- 

 self to three or four varieties, for you are likely to have full crops one 

 year and none the next. In the meantime while waiting for my apples 

 to begin bearing I had set out in the spring of 1879 my first peach 

 orchard, covering a whole acre, 160 trees. Well, I thought I was surely 

 "spreading" myself. I had the largest budded peach orchard in the 

 county and was severely criticized for my lack of judgment in setting 

 out budded fruit so far north, and it was confidently predicted that they 

 would be frozen to death the first winter, and I watched both the weather 

 and my trees very anxiously that first winter. But it has always been 

 my way to try out things for myself and I was doing so with this 

 orchard, and when the wann breath of spring started the sap to flow- 

 ing those trees started out with a vigor that put my critics to shame. 

 And how they did grow in that virgin soil. Every week I could note 

 the increase in size until by fall they had made from three to five feet 

 in growth and I began myself to fear they would winter-kill because 

 of their phenomenal growth, but it has been my experience that strong, 

 vigorous trees will stand the winters better than weak, slow growing 

 ones, because of their greater vitality. Other men had begun to set peach 

 trees now. mostly on the rolling, hilly lands, and all thrived wonderfully, 

 as the soil was mostly new and rich in nitrogen. But we all made an- 

 other mistake here as we were beginners, we did not head them back 

 and when they were seven or eight years old we could not reach the 

 tops with a ten-foot ladder. The year my first acre was four years old 

 I sold ip250 worth of peaches from it, handling them in the old fashioned 

 round baskets, which resembled the women's hats of the present day in 

 shape, inverted. Then began the rush to set peach orchards and it has 

 increased steadily up to the present time. And now upon a thousand 

 hills and slopes in this fair county where less than half a century ago 

 the forest primeval held undisputed sway, and where deer and other wild 

 animals roamed at will, are seen the handiwork of the enterprising hus- 

 bandman in the shape of flourishing orchards of apples, peaches, cherries, 

 plums and other fruits. And other thousands are waiting and inviting 

 enterprising men to come to this land of promise, and where not only 

 promises are given but where fulfillment of those promises is soon real- 

 ized, and where fortune awaits the horticulturist who will give his busi- 

 ness the same care and study and efficiency that is required of the busi- 

 ness or professional man in these days of high living if he expects to 

 make a success. And let no man think he can be a success at fruit 

 growing by the slipshod methods of a quarter century ago. We must 

 become specialists in our line, seizing every opportunity to gain and 

 apply all the knowledge we can bearing in any way upon our business, 

 being assured that the more we can put into our business in the way of 

 scientific methods the greater will be our reward. 



In the meantime I had increased my peach orchard by 800 trees, but 

 was unfortunate in these, as were many others, a ver-y large proportion 

 of my trees being untrue to name, and in my case at least, most of those 

 substituted being wholly worthless varieties and I lost many hundreds 

 of dollai*s by this, as peaches brought good prices in those days. And 

 we have the same difficulty to contend with at the present day. Nursery- 



