THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 23 



the crops. There will be less peaches and people will go into small fruits 

 and apples more. The peach trees will be kept in the locations for the best 

 peach ground, the high ones with the west and northwest slope. The slope 

 is very important I have noticed. I have seen some places where the slope 

 was just slightly to the east on one side of the road, and on the other side 

 the slope was to the west; that on the west had a crop probably three times 

 as often as the one on the eastern slope, and the slope was not very great 

 either. The matter of location cannot be too thoroughly impressed upon 

 the fruit growers in the lake shore district. 



FertiUzer: It is good to start your trees fast, but, as I said before, too 

 many use only barnyard manure or clover crop and turn it under. I have 

 seen trees, especially peaches, treated that way with clover and barnyard 

 manure that would grow so fast that every spring they would have two- 

 thirds or three-fourths of their growth killed back, and later the bark would 

 crack and the tree would be in poor shape and be subject to yellows and other 

 diseases. 



It is folly to think that the freeze killed all the scale, or nearly all of it, 

 It has killed it on the trees that were killed, of course, and a great portion 

 of it on the other trees; but there is plenty of scale left; and it is folly for 

 township boards to prevent their commissioners from making a general 

 inspection of the orchards. Now, I think, is the principal time to make 

 a good inspection of the territory, while the scale has been checked some, 

 and to get the growers to spray. 



The freeze in one way has given us the benefit by killing the scale. The 

 scale was getting rather serious. There around South Haven about 90 per 

 cent of the trees were infested. Now it will give the growers a chance to 

 get ahead of it. It may in time be the same as before, as probably a great 

 many will not spray. But it is hoped that the sluggard, the lazy man, 

 will be kept out in the new order of things. Then the scale can be kept in 

 check and the fruit belt be better than ever. (Applause.) 



The President : Mr. Wilken has put this subject well before us. Probably 

 our eastern brother here has learned more along this line than almost any- 

 body else, so I am going to ask him to give us a little of his experience. 



Mr. Hale: I don't know, Mr. President, w^hat special experience you 

 refer to. I have had so many of them ; with the southern negroes that they 

 all look sort of nice to me now. 



The freeze in Georgia in 1899, the middle of February, after our trees 

 were in bloom and we had had a temperature of 80 degrees for more than 

 two weeks, at the warmest part of each day — came a freeze and they dropped 

 down to four below zero. I was north at the time, but as soon as I could 

 pack my grip (perhaps ten minutes) I started for Georgia. Arrived down 

 there next day, and everybody was mourning the loss of the fruit crop. 

 That didn't worry me at all, because I knew it wasn't but 365 days until 

 next year; but the trees did worry me a good deal, and I made examinations 

 and found the tops were practically all dead or dying, would die; that on 

 only the northeast side of the tree was there any live bark or any that showed 

 much of any life — a little strip on the northeast side of the trees. It looked 

 as though the trees were absolutely gone, but I thought it was worth trying, 

 and I got every pair of pruning shears and saws on the place, and telegraphed 

 to Philadelphia for a lot more, and in a few days I had sixty men in there 

 among the tops of the trees taking the tops all off except where there was 

 a branch occasionally that showed chances of life. We left some little bit 

 of the top and started pulling out the brush; in the meantime, about two 



