PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING. 347 



through commission result iu a wide difference between the selling and 

 purchasing price, as has been most discouragingly experienced the past 

 season. Our orchards signally failed this year to satisfy any parties, not 

 in bushels, but iu appearance, quality, and dollars netted. One half the 

 bushels grown and sold, at the best, would have brought much better 

 results. The season was not altogether at fault. The same orchards with 

 the same care and methods of marketing will, in any year, bring similar 

 ■disappointment. 



To meet this changed condition is the work to be done, the one vital 

 interest of the business. It will not do to govern our orcharding by this 

 unqualified, flattering, and delusive saying, " no danger of overproduc- 

 tion." It might do, if it meant better work, methods, and qualities equal- 

 ing the demand. The time has come when there is little but discourage- 

 ment, disgust, and disappointment for the average grower. He must 

 move on; and notwithstanding there is much in fruitgrowing that is desir- 

 able, with good profit, it is not for the man who has no adaptation, no love 

 of vegetable life, no eyes on the alert, no wisdom in the market, no dis- 

 cernment of the time for doing, a disposition to improve the future 

 rather than the present, who undertakes solely for the money, whose 

 integrity allows him to put up 



I Packages good at the bottom and top, 

 Stuffed in the middle with worms or rot, 

 However far in the mart they stray 

 Will surer than fate come home to stay. 



And just as certainly. 



Nursery stock with lying labels 

 Ever overturns the tables; 

 Brings lots of meanest trouble, 

 Final bursting- like a bubble. 



Without further defining the new environment, we conclude that to 

 succeed now means, in a large sense, to begin over by shaping the means 

 to the end. The orchard can not succeed on a poor foundation. Upon 

 its bed depends its staying and pacing qualities. It must be thoroughly 

 prepared, enriched, pulverized, firmed. Who has witnessed a preparation 

 for the orchard equal to that which a good farmer provides for his grain? 



For fertilizers, draw heavily on clover and the grasses, and do not 

 undervalue the barnyard. Give the orchard absolute control of the 

 ground, feed it as the years go on, care for it as a thing of life; to avoid 

 splitting down, prune to a central stock with branches alternating until 

 tree is formed; allow no large, thick, spreading tops to consume by foliage 

 the strength of the tree and endanger it to storms; and to prevent over- 

 "bearing, in times of heavy fruiting, thin with a repeater. Beautiful 

 orchards have been nearly ruined by overbearing, fences have been made 

 into props, trees spoiled, and the folly of owners published. Listen to the 

 protest from every quarter against small, lean, unsightly fruit from lack 

 of thinning. If our orchards had California's care from start to finish, 

 the growers of that state would not come thousands of miles, and over 

 ranges of mountains, and out-sell us in our own markets. Study our 

 locality in relation to the market centers. INfany are feeling the disadvan- 

 tage of long distance and poor shipping facilities. Consider the time 



