74 Second Annual Report 



Of course peach trees will submit to a more severe pruning, 

 than an apple tree, but an apple tree will bear more pruning than 

 we have been giving it. We are now feeling that it ought to be 

 done, and has got to be done, if we go on planting so large a 

 number of trees to the acre. 



Spraying — There is no necessity of entering into the changes 

 along this line. Spraying has been established within the last 

 few years. Why, almost everyone here can remember when 

 spraying was a new thing, just introduced. I can remember 

 the different experiments that have been made, but now it is 

 an accepted thing. 



Tillage — A great change has come to the fruit growing 

 business in what you might call tillage. I can remember when 

 miany of the orchards in the Champlain Valley were in grass ; 

 but you will all recognize the injury it did the orchards. All 

 the new orchards are now in cultivation. 



I think I ought to make one remark to throw a side light 

 on that business of tillage. We used to suppose that cultiva- 

 tion was done in order to kill the weeds. We have learned now 

 that tillage has a more important office than that. The breaking 

 up of the soil makes a reservoir for water ; it liberates fertility. 

 So the tillage of the soil helps the trees. We don't look upon 

 tillage as a weed killer, but the tillage of the soil in the summer 

 in an orchard helps to save the moisture and it helps the trees. 



Fruit package — Perhaps the first thing we have to notice 

 with respect to fruit selling, the commercial pomology, is that 

 it is more important than it used to be. Fruit used to be grown 

 incidentally by many of the farmers. If there was a little fruit 

 to sell, well and good. Now it is a profession ; and most of the 

 fruit growers are making it the leading part of their business. 

 The grow by the best methods and produce the best article. 

 The amount of fruit used has been doubled and trebled in the 

 last few years. The extent of the market has been very greatly 

 increased. The first changes, and perhaps the most marked 

 changes, have been with regard to the packages used. Perhaps 

 I had better confine my remarks to apples, although as a matter 

 of fact, greater changes have taken place in other fruits. In 

 the first place we had to secure a barrel, even that doesn't go 

 back of your memory. The time was when almost anything 

 that would hold apples to carry down to the grocery store, would 

 go. Even now up in Canada, they haul apples to market in a 

 cart, and dump them into a car, and shovel them as they do 

 coal. I have seen that done in Addison County not very long 

 ago. But we got away from that some years ago and adopted 

 the barrel. That was a change, a great change, from that dump 

 cart method to the barrel. Then more recently came the box. 



