268 State Horticultural Society. 



wanted to sell, and many did not even want to pick their apples, 

 much less furnish barrels and pack them, and we could not furnish 

 the buyers ; while the advice given to secure barrels and pack all 

 your fancy fruit and evaporate the rest was lost on the autumn 

 winds. No buyers, no buyers, no buyers was the only cry, and try 

 and care for them yourself was our open advice. 



The bitter rot question has been settled by the decision that it 

 can be controlled if taken in time and sprayed thoroughly three 

 times with the liquid process. I have known of no one who has 

 had as good results with the dust process as has Prof. Wm. Scott 

 with the liquid. It is much to be regretted that no complete test 

 was made with the proper materials, properly mixed and dusted. 

 Spraying on a commercial basis is not fully settled yet by any 

 means. 



The care of the Orchard has been and is now a burning ques- 

 tion. Cultivation, cover crops, plowing, mulching or a grass mulch 

 are the points now being threshed over and over again in the Gov- 

 ernment Department report and by Prof. Green of Ohio Station. 

 It would be well for us to look closely into these reports, for they 

 have gone further into the question than has ever been done before, 

 and there are some things we can learn from these reports which we 

 never knew before. For instance, the belief that we have always 

 held that the roots come so close to the top of the ground that dry 

 weather or plowing injures the trees, because other roots do not go 

 down so deeply, is proven to be untrue. There are just as many 

 deep roots as in the cultivated field and many times more feeding 

 surface roots. Mulching about the trees and a grass mulch be- 

 tween the trees is surely worth our while testing. Cover crops to 

 increase the hardiness of trees has been proven for the north, and 

 we should use it in a somewhat modified form. And as for us in Mis- 

 souri, the mulch and grass mulch would be our best solution, would 

 it not? for a cover crop. Winter plowing for South Missouri is 

 still the best plan to follow, turning under all the weeds and grass 

 we can. 



In spite of all our troubles, we congratulate ourselves that we 

 have not been injured like they have in Michigan, or New York, or 

 Colorado, or New Mexico, where they not only lost their crop of 

 late peaches and grapes and most of their winter apples by the 

 freeze of October 10, but they have also, in Michigan, lost many 

 thousands of their orchards and vineyards. 



One great work of the Society is to keep in touch with all the 

 members and the thousands of correspondents who receive our 



