350 State Horticultural Society. 



What we will do is to take these questions, and times, and seasons, 

 and changes, and go at them with the same vim that we did ten, fifteen, 

 twenty or thirty-five years ago. What will we do ? Ask the young man 

 of twenty or twenty-five years. He never grieves over old times, l;)ut 

 with all his energy, and earnestness, and enthusiasm, he works with con- 

 sciousness of nothing but success. 



L. A. Goodman. 



Westport, Mo. 



A STREAM IX AX APPLE ORCHARD.— IS IT A BENEFIT? 



Editors Country Gentleman: 



I am going to present what may be called a study in fruit raising 

 that ought to draw out other notes on the subject, from which it is quite 

 possible a great amount of information on this peculiar condition of things 

 will be derived. My old home in Otsego county is not the fruit grooving 

 district that western New York is. The winters are too cold, and the 

 season is not so long. I think the soil is well enough adapted to the 

 growth of fruit trees, but the cold winter and slow summer prevent the 

 proper ripening of the wood, and so the stand of the most hardy and vigorous 

 sorts is not always what it should be. I recall an attempt to raise peach 

 trees, which succeeded well as far as growth was concerned, but cold 

 weather found the leaves on the trees just as green and vigorous as they 

 had been in midsummer. Of course the winter froze the trees to death. 



About forty years ago, a neighbor planted a row of apple trees in a 

 very peculiar position. A small stream ran through a field a few feet 

 from the road fence, which was a stone wall. The strip of land between 

 the water and the fence was not worth plowing, and so apple trees were 

 set on it. To keep the small boy and the traveling public from temp- 

 tation, the ^NTorthern Spy was selected. This variety is a very shy bearer 

 in that district, and the success of the venture is all the more apparent on 

 that account. 



A late visit to the old home finds this same row of apple trees the 

 wonder, fairly, of the neighborhood. On the same farm is what was at 

 one time a very productive orchard, but I am told that it does not now 



