44 Second Annual Report 



view. One-third of all the people in the United States are 

 farmers. 



I want to bring to your mind that we are now developing 

 different kinds of farmers ; different kinds of ideas and enter- 

 prises, and one is the horticultural enterprise; fruits and vegeta- 

 bles. George Washington knew nothing of commercial horti- 

 culture. I have recently read his diaries containing correspond- 

 ence had with overseers of his farms. When foreign represen- 

 tatives would call upon him he would ask them what plants 

 grew in their gardens, and ask them to send him seeds. I 

 don't remember that the word "horticulture" is mentioned. 

 The garden is mentioned; the English idea of a garden but 

 not gardening for profit. Washington knew of greenhouses 

 that were used for the growing of plants for market; florists 

 were not known as we know them today. He did not know 

 what plants feed on. In one of his old letters he says some one 

 had told him that he believed that plants lived on "acid." 

 Washington said that was beyond him; he would have to leave 

 that for others to work out. All these great enterprises have 

 come up since Washington's time. 



At the 50th anniversary of the Western New York Horti- 

 cultural Society, organized in 1855, I was interested to see 

 what the progress had been in all that time. There were two 

 chief points of discussion at the first meeting held in Rochester. 

 One was a long discussion on varieties of fruits ; the different 

 varieties of pears, apples, etc., and the other as to whether it 

 would ever be possible to develop commercial fruit growing 

 in Western New York. The larger part of the participants 

 thought that fruit growing would likely become a commercial 

 enterprise, and that men could make a living growing fruit ; 

 but this opinion was opposed by some who took the ground, 

 that little fruit could be grown in Western New York until there 

 was a market. At the present time, estimate, if you can,, the 

 number of men making money out of their fruit; just as much 

 money as other men are making out of dairying. Since that 

 time we have seen the rise of all scientific methods 

 of horticulture, and scientific questions concerning the 

 handling of the soil. In a fruit book of i„ooo pages, pub- 

 lished in 1872, there is only one page on the apple soil for apples. 

 Plant food, I think, is not mentioned in it. Nitrogen and phos- 

 phoric acid were not discussed; all these questions have now 

 become common language. 



We have come to the breeding of plants ; a scientific pro- 

 cess. Agriculture depends upon the increasing and maintain- 

 ing of varieties in crops. This is brought about and is possible 

 by means of fertilizing; tillage by means of rotation of crops; 



