200 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



can do. No one could afford to buy broadcloth to wear in a slaughter-house, 

 but even that would be economy compared with letting weeds grow and go 

 to seed on our best prepared soils. My grandfather used to say, "One 

 year's seeding makes seven years' weeding." I don't know whether it was an 

 original saying, but I have proved its truth and concluded that strictly clean 

 culture must be practiced before we can claim we are living up to an inten- 

 sive system of horticulture. 



As regards earliness in the maturity of crops our rich soil is always first, 

 thus bringing the produce to a better market. Looking at the loss side 

 which is inevitable, resulting from the elements, I should put frost first. 

 As I have already stated, the frequent and thorough working of the land is 

 death to insect life ; and I am going to show you how to provide against 

 drought. It is simply the rye I have been talking about ; plowed under in 

 the spring, it decays, gradually furnishing moisture to the crops and aiding 

 the manure plowed under with it. Cabbages require a great deal of moist- 

 ure. I have in mind a half-acre of that crop where every one headed, 

 through the most protracted drought I remember. It was the early part of 

 last summer. The sole reason of success lay in the moisture of the decaying 

 rye ; the land was sandy. Such a sure and cheap mode of sub-irrigation 

 should be practiced to a much greater extent than it is. In the compara- 

 tively arid parts of these United States a more thorough test of the intensive 

 system of horticulture can be given and its possibilities made more clear in 

 consequence of the necessity of a proper system of irrigation. With an 

 unlimited supply of water at our command to turn upon a crop when needed 

 there is little risk about reaping abundantly. It is not likely that we in this 

 region will irrigate except in a small way, although there is not a season 

 that passes but that the plan commends itself to us with the accompanying 

 knowledge of a rapid growth of crops; so, to get the utmost from mother 

 earth, we must add to our labors a surety of moisture for the crops. Then, 

 and not until then, will we know the producing capacity of one acre. 



S. D. Willard, a prominent nurseryman and fruit grower of Geneva, N. Y., 

 told how he got valuable ideas about fertilization from a lecture he once 

 heard from Prof. Kedzie at one of this society's meetings. It led him to buy 

 two car loads of wood ashes at a cost of $400. He gave his quince dressings 

 of this manure two years in succession, and produced thereby fruit that 

 brought $3.75 per keg in the Philadelphia market when the ordinary price 

 was $1.75 to $2. Similar results followed from plum and pear trees. In 

 1885 his Keiffer pears brought him $7.50 per barrel in Detroit, and this year 

 $1.50 more than that. He had paid what to some would seem fabulous sums 

 for manures, but they have all returned to him ten-fold. It does not pay to 

 employ labor upon poor or unfertilized soil. Later, replying to a question, 

 Mr. Willard said the quality of late pears depends very much upon the 

 method of ripening and care. He sometimes had ripened the Clairgeau 

 and had it really excellent, and again about like a turnip. Again, much is 

 due to seasons and localities. The Keiffer pear is said to be much better in 

 New York than in New Jersey. Tastes for pears differ very widely, hence 

 he would not decry any of the established kinds. 



President Lyon thus constituted the regular committees : 



On Exhibit of Apples and Pears. — J. N. Stearns of Kalamazoo, W. A. 

 Brown of Benton Harbor, Thomas Wilde of Coopersville. 



Sub-tropical and Other Fruits. — S. D. Willard of Geneva, N. Y. ; D. L. 

 Garver of Oceana county ; E. H. Scott of Ann Arbor. 



