Winter Meeting. 32^ 



orchard are set twenty-five feet each way, and this winter we are going 

 to j)ull out eacli alternate row diagonally, thereby leaving the trees 

 a little over thirty-four feet apart, each way, which I consider full 

 close for trees of their size and age. The balance of my orchards are 

 set at greater distances, for we had learned by experience that twenty- 

 five feet was entirely too close. It seems to me the best thing to d > 

 is to follow the directions of our State Experiment Stations, and suc- 

 cessful fruit growers study local conditions, and different soils; for dif- 

 ferent orchards may require slight variations in treatment. 



I would prefer healthy trees to withstand any kind of reverse, to 

 stunted ones. I would rather have a thrifty orchard, after it 

 had been killed by a hard winter, to a stunted one after it had lived 

 through it. It is easier now, for us to see that it is cheaper to raise 

 good apples than poor ones, even at same price per barrel, as the yield 

 is so much greater, with the better treatment required to grow good 

 ones. However, the good apples always command a better price. 

 Time was when the United States Weather Bureau did not give satis- 

 factory forecasts, but now they are much better. It would he much 

 to our advantage, if we could get the forecast each day, for we can ill 

 aft'ord to start on a days campaign in the orchards, without taking the 

 weather forecasts into consideration. 



ORNAMENTAL TREES AND PLANTS.— By H. R. Wayman, 



Alvord, Missouri. 



It would be useless for me to discuss this subject before this in- 

 telligent audience, except to point out a few things gleaned in the past 

 thirty years by propagating and handling nursery stock in a small way. 

 But little can be done in the way of adornment with trees and 

 plants in a closely built city. The limited space of ground will not allow 

 the full effect of landscape gardening as compared to the country seat 

 of from five to fifty acres. 



The impatience of our people as n rule will not ])ormit of begin- 

 ning at the foundation for the most perfect, beautiful and lasting im- 

 provement of this kind ; a man builds a fine house close to the highway, 

 orders from the nurserv or the river bottom the largest sluulo and e\-('r- 



