PROCEEDINGS OF THE WINTER MEETING. 31 



ALL MAKE MISTAKES. 



Well, everybody makes mistakes. This is true in all professions. The 

 lawyer, the doctor, the preacher, the editor, and even the politician, ambi- 

 tious and sharp as he may be, as an aspirant for presidential honors, finds 

 disappointments and discouragements to face, as a result of mistakes made 

 that might have been avoided by judicious care and the application of well 

 known principles and good common sense, just at the right time and in the 

 right place. 



No matter of surprise, then, that the fruitgrower, whose opportunities 

 have been in a less extended scale, and whose field for observation has 

 been circumscribed by the limits of his own county or state, should like- 

 wise find himself a victim of his own folly. We fruitgrowers are not 

 unlike the rest of mankind, and in our experiences we fall into many 

 errors that might be averted, but which in turn serve to relieve us of any 

 burdensome surplus, financially. To consider some of these errors or mis- 

 takes is the object at this time, and the advising of such measures as may 

 aid in avoiding them in the future. 



Stubborn facts are what we are called upon to face when high prices for 

 what we buy and low prices for what we sell are affording problems, the 

 solution of which is taxing the financial genius of many a man to its 

 utmost capacity. 



Each year seems to demonstrate more fully than the preceding, wherein 

 the mistakes are made, and therefore should the better fit us to avoid them 

 in the future. 



We have journals, societies, state aid, and government aid, and men of 

 science, all ready to afford the required help and to teach us how to con- 

 duct our business with success. Let us utilize all these means at our 

 command and become masters of the situation. Our state experiment 

 stations are doing a grand work, but they should be wonderfully multi- 

 plied, until every good commercial fruitgrower should have a station of his 

 own where he should test at least one of every variety of those fruits 

 which he might wish to grow, and which, from such information as he 

 might be able to derive, he would regard as adapted to his soil, climate, 

 and wants. Were this course adopted, what an experience meeting we 

 would have here at this time, and what an amount of intelligence and 

 talent would be added to all horticultural meetings! Is it not safe to 

 assume that it is a mistake that there is not more of this practical work 

 done? Perhaps, however, you of this wide-awake state are fully abreast 

 of the times and far in advance of us in the east in this regard. 



BALDWIN APPLES FAILED. 



The failure of the crop of Baldwin apples, which has now been so gen- 

 eral for three consecutive seasons, has, we think, shown conclusively that 

 this variety has been planted too largely, to the exclusion of other red 

 apples, which, to say the least, should constitute a part of the orchard. 

 The Hubbardston, Sutton's Beauty, Mcintosh Red, Gilliflower, and Ben 

 Davis all have given average crops during this time of Baldwin failure, 

 and as they are productive and sell well in the markets, why should they 

 be so neglected or overlooked? I have named Gilliflower and Ben Davis 

 last, and yet the prices at which the fruit has been selling for years, being 

 much higher than that of Baldwins and Greenings, would indicate that 



