8 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



it is now; for with the problems that have confronted us during the 

 past seasons, we need to seriously, soberly aud earnestly consider them and 

 seek to avoid mistakes that many of us have made in the past year. The 

 year That has gone by has been one where many of us have met our 

 "Waterloo" and I feel sometimes as though in many respects we have 

 been a failure in another way. Personally I feel that way, and especially 

 as by my advice a good many in years past have been induced to go 

 into the apple business and today they are plying me with questions 

 and advice as to how they can get out of the orchard business what 

 they were to believe was in it but which they have been unable to 

 secure. This past year they have raised their apples; they have got 

 fruit but there are no buyers in the field, and they do not know what 

 to do with their products. 



This is not the condition that is peculiar to our own state alone, it 

 is general. Orchardists of other states have met with the same diffi- 

 cult v. 



I cannot believe that the comparatively few hundreds of people who 

 have been induced to go into this business have been able to raise so 

 much fruit that there is such an enormous over-production as to cause 

 the present low price. Especially do I think so when there are right 

 here in our own country ninety-five million of people to eat it for nine 

 months of the year. The whole trouble I believe is that there is some- 

 thing wrong in the marketing. If we can do anything to help that end 

 of the problem it is the thing we must do. We must try to get at the 

 bottom of this matter and inaugurate some plans or methods by which 

 our fruits can be marketed and we receive something like a price com- 

 mensurate with the costs of production. 



This will probably all come out later in the discussion and now with- 

 out any further words go on and take up the first thing on the program. 



Before we take up the regular program, the first topic for considera- 

 tion is: "How Best to Feed the Apple Orchard," by Mr. Luther E. 

 Hall, of Ionia, who will address you. 



HOW BEST TO FEED THE APPLE ORCHARD. 



LUTHER E. HALL, IONIA. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen — When your Secretary asked 

 me to prepare something on this topic, he intimated that he would like 

 to have it very brief and to the point. 



Now the topic of feeding the apple orchard may be made very brief, 

 and I will try to be brief, but I hope I may be able to contribute a few 

 hints that may help in feeding the apple orchard so as to get it to 

 a condition of productiveness. 



In the first place I want to describe the conditions under which we 

 are working, and then you will better understand our methods. Our 

 soil, in the state of nature, was covered with white-oak, hickory, beech, 

 maple, basswood and elm; a heavy loam; one of those soils good to 



