FORTIETH ANNUAL REPORT. 97 



This is why many of you get so poor prices for your melons while others 

 get so much better price. The spraying of plants and trees for fungus 

 is based upon the principle that it is a good thing to get there before 

 the fungus does. You will not have any fungus or any aphis if the 

 copper solution is put on. That is one reason why I have been so suc- 

 cessful while others have met with failure — I have always been a per- 

 sistent sprayer. 



I have a spraying outfit which is a sort of self acting afl'air so ar- 

 ranged that we can spray three rows at once. We straddle the rows 

 and are able to spray as much as twenty acres a day. It is a paying 

 proposition to get a good outfit especially if you are in the business for 

 profit: My outfit cost me |120.00. 



I spray my cantaloupes from three to five times and I consider the 

 most important spraying of all to be the last one just before we are 

 ready to pick ripe melons. Cantaloupes begin to depreciate in quality 

 very rapidly, after they come to maturity because in many cases the 

 fungus begins to work but this spraying keeps off that fungus and they 

 do all right. 



I use commercial fertilizers when I cannot get stable manure. The 

 wnj I do, I have a party who gathers this up for me in the city when- 

 ever he gets a carload of it he ships it in to me and it costs me $40 per 

 carload there. I consider this the best money I invest as it yields very 

 profitable returns. With it I am able to keep my soil in good shape all 

 the time and we are enabled to grow a high grade of cantaloupe which 

 bring the very top prices in the market. For seventeen years, I have 

 been conducting my work along this line and every year has been a bet- 

 ter year for me and last season I grew more cantaloupes and better 

 ones, to the acre, than ever before but I want to say quite emphatically 

 that they were sprayed. 



You must put something back into the soil if you expect to get re- 

 turns from it so as soon as my cantaloupes are picked we seed to rye. 

 Rye I consider is the best thing to plow under, barley and wheat are 

 very good, but wheat winter kills and I prefer rye as it will stand the 

 winds and when it gets about eight or twelve inches high I can roll it 

 under. If you fertilize these lands you will be surprised at the returns 

 which they will give you back. 



Now as to varieties; as you know I have been experimenting and have 

 given several new varieties to the public that are regarded as good. In 

 Indiana my work was along this line. I consider the best early melon 

 next to the Netted Gem variety to be what is called the Rose Gem. 

 This I can heartily recommend to you as one of the very best early 

 melons. 



We have two types of Netted Gems — one I claim to be the originator 

 of. I found it first down in the hills of Tennessee and have developed 

 it until they are now a very beautiful looking melon, and while it is a 

 little late perhaps a week later than the other, it is a week better. It 

 is a little thin meated and the hollow is a trifle too large. This has not 

 been bred out but it stands up and I think it is the best Netted Gem 

 melon for long distance shipping such as New York and Buffalo. There 

 is another Netted Gem type which is rust proof. They have started a 

 variety down at the Indiana experiment station although they did not 

 originate it. That melon will stand up against rust better than any 

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