1 Summer Meeting. 143 



SOME THOUGHTS ON HOETICULTUKE. 

 F. H. Speakman, JSTeosho, Mo. 



When asked by our secretary some time ago to prepare a paper for 

 this meeting, it was my itention to take some fruit as the subject of my 

 remarks, and in looking over the program I find the raspberry has been 

 given to me. But I am not going to tell you how to grow raspberries, 

 or what varieties to plant. To be plain about it, I do not know. Tlie 

 more experience I have the more cautious I am getting to be in recom- 

 mending any fruit or treatment for it. 



I have cultivated thoroughly and seen others neglect their straw- 

 berry plants. I have even gone further and predicted failure for them 

 on account of it, only to find that the failure came nearer being realized 

 by myself than by them. I have been laughed at, at the time, for mak- 

 ing statements concerning the condition of peach trees after the extreme 

 cold of last February. I say, at the time, for now it is my turn to laugh 

 in this case, but for quite a while it did not look as though my turn was 

 coming. 



IsTever so much as now, after the opening of another fruit season, 

 has the fact that all rules in horticulture have their exceptions been 

 so forcibly brought to my notice. With this thought in mind the remarks 

 that will follow Avill not be confined to the outlining of any work in this 

 broad field of ours, but rather to pointing out, if I may, some of the miiny 

 influences which have their bearing upon the growing and marketing 

 of the fruits of the garden and the field, and the causes which produce 

 results either satisfactory or unsatisfactory to the fruit grower. 



In the outset, I will say that I do not wish to leave the impression 

 in anyone's mind that I would advise drifting, or working without a well 

 devised purpose and definite aim. We must read, study, think, yes, and 

 even anticipate. Many rules are good, but the exceptions to them would 

 sometimes seem to prove their value. All this only shows the import- 

 ance of developing the capacity (as it were) to properly digest the food 

 that is continually furnished to our minds, or, in other words, grasp and 

 weigh any new situation or condition produced by one or more of the 

 many causes that may exist. 



