04 MISSOURI STAri-: IloRriCUl/rUKAL SOCIETY. 



REPORT ON ORCHARDS. 



1!V CIIAS. PATTERSON, K I KKS\' 1 1.LK. MQ. 



As anticipated in my last report, orchards bloomed very profusely 

 this spring-, and the season so far has been favorable to a very heavy 

 crop. The trees seem to be also making a fair growth, as if preparing at 

 the same time to set fruit for next year, but unless we should have an un- 

 commonly favorably season, this cannot be expected, where they are not 

 cultivated. And with all my urging, publicly and privately, for these 

 many years, I scarcely know of any old orchard having been cultivated 

 this spring Is it not about time to quit urging and accept the 

 inevitable, that common farmers will never grow much fruit for mar- 

 ket, and but little, semi-occasionally, for their own use. Those 

 of us who have made it a life-time study have just begun to find 

 out the necessity for cultivating orchards, as they do in California 



and Florida, and are none too well agreed on it yet. It is very safe 

 to estimate that the sentiment will be twenty years in finding general 



acceptance, and then a large proportion will shrink from the job, as too 



formidable for them — they will not understand it and have no inclination 



to learn. 



Hence I estimate that fruit growing will drift into the hands of 

 specialists, who love to make a study of it, and can make it pay by ap- 

 plying labor and skill, while others will drift out in disgust. Very few 

 common farmers study their leading branches of business — how to pro- 

 duce the most and the cheapest food, and how to make the most of it 

 — but simply drift along in the old ruts, wear out their lands and move 

 off in old Virginia style, and then complain that farming does not pay. 

 We need not expect them to take up new branches of study. They 

 will not read and digest your reports and books and papers, if you give 

 them away. The tales of the much abused tree peddlers form the larg- 

 est part of their knowledge on this subject to-day, and they are just as 

 apt to growl and kick when honestly dealt with, as when swindled. 



I refer to this only to indicate that there is as good prospects ahead 

 for professional fruit growers as there ever was, if not a little better. 



