Sumwpr Meeting. 1-^ 



the barrel; the n?c uf the box for packmg apples is therefore recom- 

 mended by the Missouri State Horticultural Society. 



Evans.- — This is a good step in a great reform. I favor a box for 

 all apples fit to go to market, and sending the rest somewhere else. 



Tippin.- — Such a reform Avill be adopted rapidly as the consumer 

 reasons that little apples Avill not be put in the middle of a box as they 

 are in the bulce of a barrel. 



SHEEP RAISIXG AXD ORCHAEDIi^G. 



By I. B. Lawton, Bentonville, Ark. 



In recommending a sheep flock to the horticulturist there is a 

 strained relationship that calls for the sheep to rise and explain. Sheep 

 do excellent work in an old, well established orchard. They gather up 

 wormy fruit as well as hogs, clean up weeds better, and know just how 

 high the branches should be from the ground. They are neat and 

 orderly in their ways, distribute manure just right and leave a neat, 

 well-kept fence row. Of course, if it is a young or cultivated orchard^ 

 sheep are not "in it," but that also applies to other stock. They have a 

 bad tendency, or some individual animals have, to peel the bark of young 

 trees. Eeally, the sheep is not much of a horticulturist, but is an all 

 round good fellow to have around. 



It is a well-established fact that there are oif years in the fruit 

 business — years when untimely frosts sear our hopes, when insects and 

 fungi come like a thief at night — years wdien over-production or under- 

 consumption saps the finances out of the business. Then sheep culture 

 comes in. Each one brings about a dollar's worth of wool in May. 

 Early lambs and fat wethers sell at four or five dollars each in June or 

 later. If the fleece pays for a year's food and care, which in most cases 

 it will do, the sale of the sheej) is profit, and a I'iglit good jU'ofit, too. 



jNTot many orchardists plant all their land to orchards, and the 

 average farmer does not find it profitable to plant more than one-fourth 



H— 9 



