184 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



A. I don't care how big they Are, if they will ripen at the right time; 

 but if they start in June the growth they should have started in 

 May, and ripen the growth in September that should have been 

 ripened in August, then the bigger it is the worse you are off. There is 

 quite a difference in the details in regard to these things. I believe we 

 should get the benefits of what we do at the earliest possible moment. 

 We have no assurance of life for any great length of time, and I like to 

 get results while I am in the business. 



Mr. VanDeman: As to the growing of peaches and apples together, 

 or peaches and pears, or any of the orchard fruits, and not mixing the 

 different species, 1 want to know what is the experience. I hope that 

 those who have experience here will state it plainly, that we may know. 

 1 want to know specially what is the actual state of the case here. I know 

 something of the experience in other places, but I want to know what 

 you think. 



Mr. Winchester: Most of the men who have gone into the fruit 

 business here are men with small places. They do not have two or three 

 hundred acres, and in order to get started they find it necessary to get 

 an income from the place in a short time. The orchards grow more 

 slowly, where small fruits are grown, but I have not seen any damage 

 to the orchards. In all the orchards along the lake shore there are small 

 fruits grown. Of course, where a man has a great deal of land, like Mr. 

 Morrill, and is able to do it, I should say, by all means, set only one 

 kind of fruit. 



Q. ^Vhat about the mixing of orchard trees, peaches and apples? 



A. That was done a few years ago, when our people thought the peach 

 orchards were going to be short-lived and that apples were going to be 

 the leading crop. It was the custom then to set a quarter to apples and 

 the balance to peaches. Now we find that where peaches do best apples 

 will not do as well. 



Q. Does the apple hurt the peach or the apple the pear? 



A Member: I bought a place here thirty years ago. The peach trees 

 were twenty-three years old and the apple trees the same. The peach 

 trees had grown up to top and were just about worthless on that account, 

 but they grew elegant peaches, only they were too high up to be easily 

 reached. But if a man handles land as Mr. Morrill does, and has the 

 means to wait until he can grow the trees, I would say by all means to 

 grow one kind of fruit at a time. 



Mr. Sherwood: My father set an apple orchard in the centennial year 

 (1876) and he set forty feet apart, with pear trees between, and up to 

 last year, I didn't notice any damage. But now I think that within a year 

 or two I will have to cut out the pear trees or they will die. The trees 

 are beginning to show the drain on them of the apple trees. I think it 

 is due to the soil being weakened by the apple trees. I am satisfied 

 that the apple is stronger and robs the other. 



Mr. Smith: It is the universal practice in this country to grow small 

 fruits among our bearing fruit trees until the trees begin to bear. Of 

 course, this depends, too, upon the nature of the soil. There are some 

 light soils which will hardly bear even one variety of fruit successfully, 

 without fertilization, while other soils will bear almost anything you put 



