152 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



FUTURE OF COMMERCIAL FRUITGROWING. 

 BY PROF. H. E. YANDEMAN. 



I had no thought of having the great pleasure of meeting this society^ 

 when I left home a few days ago. I went over to Chicago to the nursery- 

 men's convention, and, having found an opportunity to slip over here^ 

 have done so. I had no thought of saying anything on the topic which 

 had been assigned to Mr. J. H. Hale, and which he, before all men in the 

 country, is able to handle. But the future of commercial fruitgrowing 

 is a topic which comes home, not only to the commercial fruitgrower him- 

 self, but to all the people in the country. The merchant and the con- 

 sumer are both intensely interested in this subject, though you, of course, 

 as commercial fruitgrowers, before all others. Now, we know that com- 

 mercial fruitgrowing has been carried to such an extent already that 

 some people seriously doubt the advisability of developing it further. 

 A great many say, '* Why plant more, there is too much now ; the markets 

 are loaded down," and such talk as that. We hear it very frequently. T 

 have heard it from every section, from California to Maine and from 

 Florida to Minnesota, and there is no doubt that in many cases commer- 

 cial fruitgrowing has not been profitable, and we might say there is a 

 dark future for it ; but if we will only take the matter into more serious 

 consideration, I think we can see that there is a bright prospect for the 

 commercial fruitgrower. But it is in following just one line that it may be 

 said that there is this bright future, and that is in doing it most 

 thoroughh' and in raising a high grade of fruit. The market will, in a 

 hundred years from now, I suppose, be loaded down with trash. It is 

 very rarely that we can find a market burdened with really good fruit; 

 and that brings us to the question. How are we going to be able to grow 

 good fruit? I think it is a question easily answered. If we will do as 

 some are doing, after having made a good selection of locality and of 

 .soil and all that sort of thing, and then do as Mr. Hale and Mr. Morrill 

 are doing, for instance, cultivate thoroughly and thin severely and fer- 

 tilize abundantly, there is no doubt that we will come out in the right 

 place. 



A great many, when they have planted their orchards, have given them 

 common cultivation and think they have done their duty. They think 

 any one who would take pains to go twice each week over his orchard 

 with a cultivator of any kind was expending an undue amount of labor. 

 That is not true; it is a great mistake. I venture the assertion that if there 

 were not a bit of rain from now to the time peaches ripen in August, Mr. 

 Morrill would have a good crop of peaches in his orchard. If there 

 were not a single drop of rain from noAV till then, I will venture that 

 under the cultivation he is carrying on neither the trees nor the peaches 

 would stop growing, and they would mature in fine condition. I don't 

 know how many of you have seen that orchard, but I am certainly very 

 much pleased to have seen it myself, and this is only a sample of what 



