FORTY-SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 115 



he reported that they only got a cent a pound for these cherries, so the 

 growers who picked and packed these cherries lost money. We receive 

 six cents a quart while the other fellows around me got only four 

 and a half, so you see I was much better off. They will continue to 

 come in year after year with their cherries, but I do not think that 

 we will be obliged to cut our orchards down, and my advice is, to stay 

 right in Michigan and grow our own fruits. 



The tree disease is another problem. As I said before, we have a 

 very few of these diseases with us up in the north part of the state. 

 We have the leaf curl and that is about all. We have never solved the 

 Little Peach or Yellows question, how to absolutely control it. The 

 only way we have done is to pull out the trees and burn them, and 

 thus keep our orchards in good shape. Of course, there are many men 

 who will not do this unless the Commissioners make them do it. We 

 do, however, have one thing in the north that is on the sour cherries, 

 a new disease — the trees perfect their foliage and make a good growth, 

 and there appeared on certain of the limbs a small nodule. The cherries 

 grew and formed all right, and then they turned yellow, and did not 

 grow any more. They had a brownish tinge to the meat. The cherries 

 did not drop off. These cherry trees that were affected — only three 

 in my orchard — are worth one hundred dollars each, but I will pull them 

 out and burn them, and so will not take any chance. 



Spraying. I Avant to say a few words about spraying. I will tell you 

 of one thing where I think we fail, and that is, in thorough work. Few 

 horticulturists ever do as thorough work as they should. Not alone in 

 spraying, but in other ways as well. You can go into an orchard late 

 in the fall and you can tell where the good and bad work has been 

 done. In our neighboorhood there is a man who has a cherry orchard 

 which he declared he sprayed just as Rose told him to do. But he did 

 not. On the outside the leaves were all right, but on the inside of 

 the tree where he failed to get on his copper sulphate solution, the 

 foliage was not properly sprayed and the results were as might be ex- 

 pected. You cannot grow a successful fruit crop the year that you get 

 possession of a farm. A successful fruit crop should be grown two or 

 three years in advance. You must have a foliage that is so good and 

 a tree so healthy that it will store vitality sufficient to grow good 

 fruit. Apple trees should have their foliage on now. They should be 

 full of foliage like the white oak grub, and this can be if proper spray- 

 ing is done at the right time. 



Another of the problems that confronts many of us is the getting of 

 men who will do good thorough work. It seems strange that when men 

 are paid a good price for their services that they are not willing to 

 give value received. They have never learned to be careful, to take an 

 interest in things, and care for the work left to their hands as if it were 

 their own. Indeed, I don't know as they would do any different if 

 it was their own. They have evidently lacked an early training, but it 

 is a fact that only a very small proportion of those whom we employ 

 can be trusted to do the same when you are not with them as when you 

 are on the job to inspect all their work. 



Another problem that we are up against is the matter of the fertility 

 of the orchard. There is not very much manure made on a fruit farm. 

 We can ship in stable manure from Chicago and some other places. 



