Annual Meeting at St. Joseijh. 93 



numerous branches, inclining more to be horizontal. Your soil 

 may grow but few roots, mostly straight downward, while ours 

 makes mostly side roots, spreading horizontally with the surface. 

 This difference may be fully as perceivable on older trees, which 

 therefore may require less pruning with you than with us. And 

 a more open subsoil than ours, where the water can filter through 

 more rapidly, and carry the nutriment it finds and dissolves near 

 the surface further down, distributing it to the apple roots as well 

 as to the surface growth of grass or weeds, may not need as much 

 cultivation, or not need it as soon as ours. But wheu I hear men 

 advocating no pruning, and no cultivation after a certain few years, 

 I feel almost as certain of disappointment in store on one soil as 

 another, with only a little difference in time. There is no place on 

 the globe where j^otatoes can be grown as good without cultivation 

 as they can with it, and I do not believe that apples can be 

 grown as good or as profitably without cultivation as with it, any- 

 Avhere. The dead and dying branches they talk of removing, should 

 always have been removed long before they came into that condi- 

 tion. Their presence on the trees is the strongest possible proof 

 that the manager either did not understand his business, or neg- 

 lected it, and then, Adam-like, tried to find an excuse for it. 



The price-current here for apples was 3oc. per bushel, and was 

 considered quite unsatisfactory by many, perhaps mostly because 

 they have frequently brought 50c., and we expected as much, or 

 nearly as much, this year. But I find we will have to reconcile 

 ourselves to considering this quite satisfactory. It is so nearly 

 equal to %% per barrel in St. Louis, that a man is scarcely paid for 

 his labor and risk, and by the time a consumer pays for going 

 through one, two, or three hands more, he is entitled to our sym- 

 pathy. It is also fully, or very nearly, equal to the price received 

 by growers much further east, as in Ohio and even interior New 

 York, where culls for evaporating and cider were sold for 7 to 15c. , 

 which we have not learned to make pay for the labor of gathering 

 and hauling. From all accounts I judge that 40c. has been about 

 the outside price jjaid anywhere for shipj^ing at gathering time, and 

 all agree that the returns have been satisfactory and j^rofitable, 

 compared with other pi'oducts of the soil. 



Of Early Eichmond cherries we had a full crop — all that the 

 trees were cajaable of bearing. There are not half enough trees 

 planted to furnish the country what would be used if produced, 

 even in such a plentiful year. They seem to be as reliable for a 

 crop, as apples, if planted on ground that does not hold stagnant 



