THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 89 



proper tillage of the soil. You can't just put fertilizer into the soil and get 

 direct results out of it. Tillage is a large factor in the handling of any soil. 



I like the commercial fertilizers best because they are the easiest to handle 

 in the first place. With us they are the most economical. The cost of 

 stable manure would almost prohibit handling it on many acres of land. 

 The land that I cultivate lies back on the hills, where the cost of cartage 

 alone would be almost as much as that of the purchase of commercial fertil- 

 izers and their application. 



I like the commercial fertilizers because I can apply them in a way that 

 the trees need. Here is a great broad field like this room here, of perhaps 

 thirty or forty acres, and it has the different characteristics of the soil. If 

 we spread on stable manure, we put on the same kind of plant food all over. 

 If we use commercial fertilizers we can see from experience, if we keep our 

 eyes open, that a certain section of land responds more readily to potash 

 than another; this section perhaps does not need the potash; so we only put 

 it there where it is most needed. Another section of trees needs increase 

 in foliage and we supply more nitrogen. As we need, so we put the fertilizer. 

 We apply just the raw materials that the tree and the plant tell us they 

 need; and they tell that very readily. An observer who keeps in touch 

 with his trees and plants will soon find out what they want. Trees are a 

 good deal like children and chickens and pigs, when you listen to them, 

 that is all. There are different ways of listening. You have to listen mostly 

 with your eyes; sometimes it pays to Hsten with the returns that come back 

 from market; those touch your pocket book and you feel those pretty 

 thoroughly. 



I made some notes here, and I don't know whether any of them are good 

 or not. Notes don't go nowadays; they rather have the cash, (Laughter.) 

 Or at least they seem to. 



In my early days, when I was interested perhaps more in experimenting 

 than I am now — and speaking of early days and experimenting reminds me: 

 Some little time ago I was taking dinner with dear old Edward Everett Hale, 

 just a family party there, and he was telling us something of his early life, 

 and telling a little story of marrying a couple one day, and of what he said 

 to them, which made us all laugh; and then he went away in a reminiscent 

 mood, and he said, "Yes, but that was years ago, when I was giving more 

 advice than I do now." It showed he had grown, showed the dear old fellow 

 had grown. 



Some one has said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive," that applies 

 only to kicks, rnedicine and advice. There is some truth in that unquestion- 

 ably. But I made some tests of commercial fertilizers with potash alone 

 on small fruit, and I was astonished at the increased color that was added 

 to the lighter types of strawberries by heavy feeds of potash. I was 

 astonished at the increased sugar that we got into the strawberries by heavy 

 applications of potash, both from the wood ashes and from the German 

 potash salts. I have made applications in the same way to our peach orchards 

 extensively; I have been almost prodigal in the use of potash at times in 

 some of my sand land peach orchards, but it has been astonishing how we 

 have painted those peaches with a wonderful blush that made them so at- 

 tractive in the market, and enabled us to get the money back to pay for the 

 potash, and something extra for the bank account. 



From my experience on sandy land, on the light soil such as you have in 

 many sections in Michigan, where you are growing peaches: on similar tj^pes 

 of land in the east and south we have added wonderfully to the color ofour 

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