PROCEEDINGS OF THE SUMMER MEETING. 103 



as if the fruit had been thrown on with a scoop-shovel, I was puzzled to 

 know why you dug up apple trees; but when I saw your four-year and 

 three-year-old trees loaded with peaches, I could find the explanation. I 

 was up in northwestern Iowa, and asked a man there about the different 

 kinds of fruit, and he said, " We can grow blackberries here very success- 

 fully in northern Iowa." I went over his farm, and there were two men, 

 one at each end of a long rail, pressing down the blackberry bushes and 

 cutting Hway the soil, and two men on either side the row layering the 

 blackberries. When I rode over your peach orchards this morning, I 

 thought if I lived in Michigan I would put every foot of ground I had iu 

 peach-growing, and I looked at it in this way: You people can grow 

 peaches here as they can not be grown anywhere else in the world, at 

 least any part of the world I ever saw^; and if you can grow apples as 

 successfully and as easily as you can peaches, it seems to me the rest of us 

 would better not attempt to grow any apples. 1 just want to leave this 

 thought with you. You have something which I do not believe you 

 really appreciate. Of course, the apple belt is larger than the peach belt; 

 apples can be grown over a larger area; at the same time, it is only a 

 small portion of this great country that can grow apples. South of 

 Cairo, 111., you can not grow apples, and up in the northern part of our 

 state, we can not grow apples for commercial j)urposes. In fact, far north 

 of central Illinois you can not, and peaches can only be grown in a very 

 few places in this country. You have here something which is wonder- 

 fully valuable, and I am afraid you do not appreciate it. 



Mr. Morrill: The most successful apple localities here are not quite so 

 well adapted to peaches. As a rule, our most successful apple orchards 

 are on land rather richer than that required for peaches, and it does not 

 require the same rolling land, and we have room for all of them. The 

 question is, which can be made the most profitable. We can grow them 

 all successfully, where proper care is given. Mr. Sherwood has demon- 

 strated that. The question of thinning fruit was spoken of. I hope next 

 winter some member or members of the State society will be able to 

 report fully and accurately on the value of thinning apples. We have an 

 opportunity now; there is time enough yet, but it should be done before 

 the seed formation takes place to any extent. There are one or two 

 men who have agreed, having uniform rows of trees, to take at least a 

 few checked trees and thin them down to what they think would be 

 proper, and then to save them separate and measure them carefully and 

 report on the value of the different grades that they obtain. I have two 

 men who have agreed to do that, and I believe that Mr. Sherwood would 

 be willing to do it. I mean to try it myself. 



Mr. Sherwood : That is one thing that I have had on my mind for some 

 weeks. Oftentimes our apples, though setting very full, will during the 

 hot weather of July or August drop, and in this the apple is different 

 from the peach, for it stays on until the first of October, and there are 

 too many things that may come in that time, such as hot winds, blights, 

 etc., in which the apples drop; and as a usual thing, where we have so 

 large a crop, something of that kind does occur, but I think it is practica- 

 ble. However, that is one of the reasons I have never followed the 

 practice of thinning. 



