186 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



entire season were given the best of care, made a magnificent growth, and 

 were the pride of the owner and looked upon with envy by his less am- 

 bitious neighbors. The first winter was rather severe, and the spring 

 found every tree as dead as hay, while other trees on the same farm, no 

 better located, were uninjured. This was on one of the fruit farms in Kent 

 county, where peaches have not failed for many years. Such results as 

 these have convinced me that a little wholesome neglect at the latter 

 part of the season is often beneficial, and that care should be exercised in 

 using fertilizers rich in nitrogen. For the first three years, or until the 

 trees become thoroughly establir-hed, we would practice banking with 

 earth about one foot high, late in fall or just before winter sets in, taking 

 care to get the earth several feet from the tree. This will prevent the 

 ground from freezing so hard, and the water and ice from collecting about 

 the tree. 



Before closing, I will say that, although a few general rules will apply 

 to all localities, nothing will tend to promote the success of the thought- 

 ful fruitgrower more than obtaining the experience of his neighbors in a 

 well conducted horticultural society. 



DISCUSSION OF THE THREE PRECEDING PAPERS. 



Mr. Willard: There are two very important facts that have been 

 brought out by Mr. Stearns in that valuable paper. I rarely listen to a 

 paper that seems to have so much meat in it, but there are two points 

 I desire to emphasize: the thinning of fruit and pruning. He has illus- 

 trated that point beautifully, by speaking of the cutting off of the tops 

 of the pear trees. I think one great reason of the complaints in relation 

 to the quantity and quality of our pears, grows out of the fact that the 

 knife is not used enough. The best dwarf pear orchard I have ever seen 

 (which has yielded the greatest results I ever knew or heard of) is the 

 one that has been cut the most. It has had annual prunings that took 

 off large percentages of the annual growth. Of course it has been 

 well fed. The results have been perfectly fabulous, and I undertake 

 to say that, so far as cutting is concerned, there is no danger of trimming 

 too much. It is practically thinning the fruit before it is formed, and I 

 believe I have known of instances in my own experience, as well as that 

 of others, where a surplus of bloom has resulted in a total lack of fruit. 

 I believe there are instances where trees bloom so profusely as to weaken 

 them. Now, he has covered that whole ground. He undertakes to illus- 

 trate that, by telling about how he cut off his pears, and the results. He 

 further says that the fruit niusl: be thinned. If that applies to peaches, 

 it applies to every other variety of fruit. In the other room is a plate 

 of apples of a variety taking its origin in Mississippi. I have only two 

 trees, but they have fruited four years in succession, and the two plates 

 that are in there are from the second fruiting. The fruit on these two 

 trees was thinned twice during the season, but not as it ought to have 

 been. The first time it was a failure. You can not hire a man to cut 

 off the fruit as he ought, and we had to do it over again afterward, and 

 yet there was as much taken off as was left. It is one of our choice 

 apples, and of great value because it is one of those varieties not affected 

 by fungus. It is a grand thing to spray, but it is better to raise those 



