Additional Papers. 141 



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student of these kindred subjects, and the different means of obtain- 

 ing these items or facts or experiences which helps to give the man 

 success in his enterprise. 



First, then, is the fact that all our public schools are taking up 

 this nature study, and learning that plants and trees are alive just as 

 much so as are cats and dogs and cows and horses, and what they 

 need is treatment as if they were alive, not as dead. This instilling 

 into the minds of these young lads and lassies this fact of hfe and 

 growth and propagation and improvement makes them interested at 

 once in plant growth and fruit production. 



Second to these are our local Horticultural Societies scattered all 

 over the State in over sixty different counties where the real practical 

 knowledge of fruit growing in all its branches and all the experiences 

 of every member is at the services of every other member. These Local 

 Societies are a power to themselves, to their counties and to the State 

 in no small way. 



The influence of the State Horticultural Society during the 46 

 years of its existence has been a power for good which no man can 

 estimate. Probably to it, more than any other influence, does the 

 State owe its prominence as the first in orchards in all this Union. 

 It has been working faithfully and honestly and earnestly during all 

 these years, and especially the last twenty-five years, to give true 

 facts of experience, as secured from the best fruit growers about the 

 State, about the soils, varieties, cultivation, care, pruning, insect pests, 

 fungus diseases, picking, packing and marketing so that every man 

 can know if he will only read or study or question. It has helped to 

 locate and direct more settlers to this State and direct them as to care 

 of orchards than any other influence. It stands always ready to give 

 exact facts, as far as it is possible to obtain them, to every citizen of 

 the State and thus help save them from loss when planting their 

 orchards. 



FRUIT GROWING IS A BUSINESS. 



(L. A. Goodman.) 



A business it is getting to be. The berry business alone is such 

 that it takes a hundred thousand men, women and children to pick 

 them when ripe. Hundreds of thousands of acres of our best fruit 

 land is adapted to berry growing. There is no fruit, not even except- 

 ing the apple, which produces such an abundance of fruit every year, 



