378 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the fruit that we like to put into our mouths. You never can supplant the 

 banana with the Baldwin apple or a Ben Davis. The banana is supersed- 

 ing the Baldwin apple, but it is not superseding Hubbardston or Jon- 

 athan. The trouble is, we haven't, for the people who are willing to 

 pay for such things, the quality in the market. Almost any one would 

 rather have a banana than a Baldwin apple, and almost any one who has 

 any good taste at all would rather have a Jonathan apple than a banana 

 or a melon. 



Mr, Cook: If we could wipe out the apples Mr. Garfield suggests, the 

 poorer qualities, and put in their places the good ones, there would not 

 be any trouble on that line. Now, it seems to me that the true theor\' 

 is for our farmers to cut down an apple tree that is not good for any- 

 thing, and graft it to something that is good — not put it on the market 

 at all. 



What is best as to a pear orchard, to prevent blight — leave it in sod or culti- 

 vate it f 



The President: That ground has been fought over, every inch of it, 

 ten or fifteen or twenty 3'ears and I don't believe any one knows anything 

 more about it than he did. 



Mr. Kussell: A part of my peach and j^lum orchard is on first-class 

 heavy clay ground, rather rolling, and I am having a great deal of diffi- 

 culty this year about its washing. I never had any before. I would like 

 to know what is the best thing to do. 



The President: During the summer months, while you were culti- 

 vating it? 



Mr. Russell: Yes, sir; and in the fall. 



Mr. Cook: In the south, to prevent washing of lands, they plow 

 around the hills, plow in circular form. You will find that in all the hilly 

 country in the south, so far as I have seen, they plow in that way; they 

 do not make any straight lines. If their land washes very readily, and if 

 they have a hill, they will plow around it in a circle so that each furrow 

 forms a sort of dam to prevent the water from going below. 



The President: That does not suit Judge Russell's case, because his 

 orchard is all set in straight rows. I have had a little trouble in that 

 line in my own orchards, the starting of gulleys when we got through 

 cultivation in the fall, and in the spring when the frost is coming out. 

 The first thing I do is to take some of the short trimmings out of the 

 orchard and place them in bunches in tiie gulley with the butts upstream. 

 I do not care if the gulley is but ten feet long, we will put some of that 

 fine brush there, which we know will rot within a vear, and shovel earth 

 on, and commence the cultivation across the hills as much as possible, 

 and it will not wash again for a year or two on top of that. The earth 

 will gradually fill up and the brush will rot. By this method I have had 

 good success. 



A Member: Do you bind them in bundles? 



The President: No, just gather them up any way. A man gathers 

 them as rapidly as he can, with his hands, dragging them in, and takes 

 a shovel and throws a little earth on to hold them until a team passes 

 over with a cultivator. 



