200 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



" The seed of apple and pear are sprouted iu beds after receiving much 

 the same treatment during the winter that we in America give them. After 

 they have made a little growth, the young plants are taken up and trans- 

 planted about an jnch apart each way, in beds about four feet wide. The 

 beds have narrow paths between, just wide enough to stand and walk in. 

 After this transplanting, if the season is dry, the beds are irrigated by means 

 of water from deep wells, raised by wind-mills or horse-power. The weeds 

 are pulled out, but no cultivation of course is possible. 



" In the plantations of larger stock, the forest and shade trees are usually 

 planted in the same manner, except that the trees are a foot or more apart 

 each way and the paths are left out. Our system of deep cultivation is of 

 course not possible, and the only thing that can be done is to keep the 

 ground clean by hoeing, and the surface loosened up. The ground is man- 

 ured heavily and at great expense, the fertilizers being all carried from the 

 compost heap in baskets on the backs of workmen. If some of our people, 

 who think they have a hard time, could see women backing out manure at 

 forty cents per day for twelve hours' work, they would conclude that there 

 are people worse off than they, and a worse country to live in than the 

 United States. A first-class workman receives from four to five francs, 

 eighty cents to one dollar, per day of twelve hours, and is then competent to 

 take care of a gang of men. The bulk of the workmen receive three francs, 

 or sixty cents a day of twelve hours. In the districts near Paris they get 

 rather more, while in the Cologne districts they average but two and a half 

 francs or 50 cents per day. Land, on the contrary, is exceedingly high, 

 $1,U00 per acre being the average price given me of some eight or ten cou- 

 cerns near the larger towns. The dearness of land and the cheapness of 

 labor account for the absence of labor saving machinery and tlie cheap- 

 ness with which stock is produced. 



"First-class standard apples in France must have stems at least six feet 

 without limbs, and they are frequently ten and twelve feet high. Cherries 

 and pears are grown in the same way. They are of necessity older, rougher, 

 and not so bright as our trees. The green moss must, as a rule, be scraped 

 off the bodies before being delivered. The extra age and size makes the price 

 high, the ruling figures being thirty cents for standard pears, twenty to 

 twenty-five cents for standard apples, and twenty-five to thirty for cherries. 

 The tree agent and dealer is not known in that country, most of the orders 

 coming direct to the nursery. A good deal of stock, however, is sold at the 

 fall fairs. The peasants come in from the surrounding country with a cart 

 load of trees, and the nurserymen say that the peasant seller always has on 

 hand any sort the customer may ask for. 



'*My own impression is that the temptation to substitute, under the whole 

 system, is greater than under the agent and dealer plan, and I can assure 

 you that certain concerns have as bad a reputation for that sort of thing as 

 any one can well have, and the presumption is that they deserve it, as under 

 their system of business the seller has all the responsibility, there being no 

 middleman, agent or dealer. 



"The coLditions of climate are quite different from ours. The winters are 

 not 80 cold as ours in the north, nor the summers so hot, tender plants like the 

 camelia flourishing on the west coast, while 100 miles inland they cannot be 

 grown at all, indicating a difference equal to that between New York and 

 Georgia. Their climate and soil produce fine trees and fine fruit, aud we 



