Winter Meeting. 245 



The message I bring you from the east tonight is one full of 

 hope. In my days I have seen a wonderful change come over the 

 methods in the east. The west will follow in the same way. This 

 western soil is going to get too valuable to use for raising stock. 

 Do you know that once the state of Connecticut was the greatest 

 corn producing state we had? It has greatly changed and de- 

 veloped. The people are still there, and they produce more in the 

 way of foods, but of a different kind. But the people are happier 

 and doing better than they ever were. I ran away from the east 

 when only 18; went to Colorado. I went back again. You think 

 you have a great country, and you have. Think you are a great 

 people, and you are. Men have run away from New England for 

 lack of opportunities and have helped to build up your country. 

 The speaker gave some interesting experiences of his early youth, 

 and told how the advent of machinery and new methods forced the 

 people to other and better ways for making a living. 



We are no longer sending you the best we have, but you are to 

 send us the best you have. The time is coming when you will have 

 to follow our methods of plant feeding and fertilizing. We are 

 bringing lots of land into cultivation — steep hillsides and thou- 

 sands of acres of pasture lands. We used to raise cattle and sell 

 them in the city, but now raise things more valuable. We have many 

 abandoned farms ; they present a most melancholy sight. We are 

 taking up these farms and find a great surprise. Nature is never 

 idle, and while these farms have been lying there, they have been 

 accumulating strength enough in the soil to grow trees to a fruit- 

 ing age. After that we have to feed them. Many are buying this 

 cheap land from twenty dollars per acre up and putting it out in 

 orchards. We are just learning to adapt the varieties to the soil. 

 With it all, it's the man behind the fruit — the man behind the 

 tree — who makes success, by finding the varieties suited to the 

 soils and caring for the same. On my own hillside farm we can 

 grow Baldwins to perfection, while many other varieties are in- 

 ferior. When we find the best variety, stick to that. We are near 

 the best markets in the world. We can well afford to buy a little 

 fertilizer when we get such a good price for our products. 



Another thing has given us renewed hope. We had the San 

 Jose scale and were about ready to quit, but made up our minds 

 that we could fight it. To do this we have got to have a new tree 

 grown in a new way. Can't fight it with a high-headed tree. We 

 are now getting the trees down low to the ground, with an open, 

 fan-shaped head ; then we can throw the spray in easily. Some 



