56 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Morrill : Yes; and it has been fully demonstrated at South 

 Haven that it may be safely done. 



Mr. A. G. Gulley of Agricultural College: I have a six-year-old 

 orchard at South Haven standing where trees diseased with yellows were 

 pulled out two years before this orchard was set. But in that vicinity 

 there are plenty of healthy trees growing where diseased trees were 

 pulled out only the season before replanting. 



OUR BARREN APPLE ORCHARDS. 



The secretary read a paper by Mr. A. C. Glidden of Paw Paw on the 

 above topic: 



"Barrenness in fruit trees may come from various causes. Some of 

 these causes are well understood, while others are set down as dispensa- 

 tions too mysterious for successful inquiry. There is a good deal of stress 

 usually laid upon "bearing years" and some go so far as to say that years 

 with even numbers are the bearing years, and the odd numbers the barren 

 ones. Acceptance of all such frivolous conclusions is a disclosure of a 

 state of mental laziness, not conducive to the highest success in fruit- 

 growing. There are always good and sufficient reasons for events in 

 nature, as well as in human affairs. There is no capriciousness in the 

 goddess who governs the bloom and the maturity of fruit, and no perverse- 

 ness toward those who make a business of their production. 



The limit of my theme will not allow me to go over the causes of barren- 

 ness in fruit in general, and I shall not allude to them except to illustrate 

 my subject. Barrenness in apple trees comes largely through natural ten- 

 dency in usual seasons. The tendency of varieties to set to fruit, as it is 

 termed, or not to do so, is generally understood. The Baldwin is an 

 illustration of the former and the Northern Spy, while the trees are young, 

 and several other varieties not so well known, because of this tendency, of 

 the latter. 



Propitious seasons stimulate unproductive trees into fruitage in 

 occasional years, and they then again lapse into unf ruitf ulness for a longer 

 or shorter period as the seasons may determine. But when what we term 

 fruitful varieties fail for a season, and especially when two successive 

 seasons of failure follow, it is well to inquire into the causes that have 

 produced such an unwonted occurence. How much tendency, or a habit 

 introduced by force of circumstances, has to do with bearing years, it is 

 hard to determine; but bearing to excess in one year is reason enough why 

 an apple tree should fail to bear the next. The peach-grower who properly 

 thins his crop, sees no " tendency" toward alternate bearing; if the season 

 is favorable, he expects a crop as certainly as the season's return. But 

 when the trees are allowed to strain themselves toward perfecting the 

 entire setting, a barren year will surely follow. 



The effort of nature is not to perfect the pulp which we utilize. It is 

 only anxious for a large amount of seed to insure the perpetuation of the 

 species. In this effort, if allowed to indulge its own sweet will, it puts forth 

 all its powers for that purpose, and has no reserve force left to go toward 

 the production of buds for next season's fruitage; so we have a year of 



