82 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



PREPARATORY WORK. 



I am well aware that I am addressing men of wide experience and prac- 

 tical habits, who may doubt the wisdom and expediency o£ fruitgrowing 

 on an extended scale; and yet it is to just such minds that I desire to 

 appeal, with the hope that I may advance sorhe ideas that may arouse you 

 to appreciate the possibilities within your reach, undertaken with intelli- 

 gence and prosecuted with the same zeal and enthusiasm that would be 

 required to succeed in any other undertaking. 



Cease to regard trees and plants as so created that they can care for 

 themselves, with ability lo derive their nourishment from the atmosphere 

 or some other unknown source, requiring no eflPort on your part. It is a 

 fatal mistake to suppose that a favorable response will follow such 

 treatment. 



For years, nitrogen, potash, and phosphoric acid have been drawn from 

 the soil at a fearful rate, with no corresponding effort to their restoration: 

 and yet we are taught that these are the essential elements of all plant life, 

 and that potash, more than any other one element, will contribute to pro- 

 duce the hard, good wood, the well developed, rugged bud, and the vigor- 

 ous, strong leaf, giving a combination indispensible to the foundation of a 

 future crop of fruit. 



This j)reparatory work must be laid out in advance, by careful, judici- 

 ous culture and proper feeding, if satisfactory results are desired. Who 

 can say that, had this liberal policy been adopted several years since, and 

 these apple orchards been generously fed with these elements in one form 

 or another, they would not have been fitted to resist the fearful attack of 

 scab, the cost of which was the. loss of the apple crop the past season? 



Preventives are often efficacious in all plant diseases, while curative 

 results are rarely seen. 



It is said that varieties there are, whose foliage is so strong as to be 

 impervious to the work of fungus. If this be so, may not sorts more tender 

 and sensitive be rendered less so by the generous use of such fertilizers as 

 aid to this end? We ask the applegrowers of this state to carefully consider 

 this subject, as we assure you that you must manage to maintain a healthy 

 foliage, by some method, in order to be insured crops of fruit. 



We believe in any and every appliance that will contribute to the gen- 

 eral health and vigor of everything we grow, for herein we look for our 

 possibilities. We are told that many varieties of fruit have not in them- 

 selves a sufficient degree of power to fertilize their own blossoms. It is 

 certainly so with strawberries, grapes, and our native or wild plum, and 

 recent experiments indicate that it may be equally true of many sorts of 

 apple, pear, and our finer cultivated plums and cherries. Certainly this is 

 a subject full of interest, and may possibly work a revolution in our future 

 systems of planting. Who can say that in this one condition may not be 

 found a solution of many crop failures? 



We are living in a wonderfully progressive age, in which science as 

 applied to fruit-culture may yet play a part we little imagine. Let no man 

 ignore the grand work being done by state and government in our behalf. 



DO NOT PLANT IN BLOCKS. 



We suggest, would not a more general intermingling of varieties in our 

 commercial orchards be a step in the right direction? It is said that, so 



