112 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



PEOBLEMS THAT CONFRONT THE MICHIGAN FRUIT 



GROWERS. 



PAUL ROSE, ELBERTA. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is a very easy matter to 

 suggest problems, and it is not at all a difficult matter for the practical 

 fruit grower to propound them, but what we want here is someone who 

 can solve them. This is what we are up against — we want some one to 

 put his head above the horizon who is able to give* us a satisfactory 

 solution of the many problems that present themselves to us as horti- 

 culturists. I will try to note a few of these problems that I have had 

 to deal with and will tell you how I tried to solve them. 



First, the matter of location. There are many horticulturists who 

 know that they are wrongly located; they did not know it, however, 

 when they bought their land from the land agent. Now, ought they 

 to go on and continue on this place, or will it be better for them to get 

 out of there and go where the location is more advantageous? My 

 advice would be to sell out, or even give away your land, rather than 

 remain there and waste your years and money in a location where you 

 will never make a success of the business. 



You have heard discussed quite fully this far, the proper require 

 nieiits of an ideal fruit, and especially peach location. How will you 

 find that place? Well, get the best information from those who actually 

 know. Don't take the advice of real estate men who have no object 

 excepting to exploit certain lands and dispose of them at exorbitant 

 prices. Consult men like Mr. Sessions and others who have made a suc- 

 cess of the business. Don't be in a hurry to decide the location. Get 

 all the information from all the good reliable men that you can, then 

 act on your own judgment, based upon their advice. 



Up in our neighborhood there are a great many red raspberries 

 grown. You see we get onto the late markets when this territory here 

 is out of the way. Now, on every farm there are acres that are adapted 

 to growing raspberries and there are acres that are not adopted to their 

 growth at all for instance, there was a man in our country who had 

 berries on one side of a slope for which he would receive as high as 

 three dollars a case for his first grade. This was on a north slope 

 on heavy soil that was naturally a little seepy — that is, rich raspberry 

 land. Well, on the other side of that hill the land was dry, ami other 

 conditions seemed to be all right and he thought "What a beautiful 

 location for berries!" Not at all! You see it is all a matter of loca- 

 tion as to where you pick your ground for red raspberries. Now that 

 latter place would have been good to plant peaches on, but it was not 

 good for red raspberries, and it proved to be so. It is just so with 

 cherries, and peaches, and pears — the location lias all in the world 

 to do with whether you make a success or a failure of the work. 



Shall we go off here one hundred miles and plant an orchard — as 

 I have done sometimes, and as others have done, to their sorrow — 



