168 Missouri state horticultural society. 



Br. Goslin — Tliis society should be careful to send out only good 

 teachings. I was damaged by following some teaching I heard at 

 Carthage in regard to no pruning by Col. Haseltine. I went home and 

 said I would not prune any as that would be easier, and if no pruning 

 was better than pruning, it would be very easy to do the better way. I 

 reaped my reward. I have learned that an apple tree must be culti- 

 vated. I have experience, and know what I am talking, and I know 

 an apple tree requires cultivation just as much as a hill of corn requires 

 cultivation. The growing of apples is becoming a profession. The 

 early settlers grew good apples without cultivation, but ,we cannot do 

 that now. My apples were small, and the men who bought them asked 

 me why I did not go to another horticultural society and make them 

 still smaller. I knew a German to whom I once sold apples who pre- 

 ferred small apples, as they would go farther. If we can raise first- 

 class apples we need not fear about selling them. Buyers will come. 

 To have such apples we must prune carefully. Taking a tree when it 

 is first planted it requires careful training, just as a boy requires train- 

 ing. Continue it from year to year, and you will never have to prune 

 heavily. This year our trees have over-borne, and the constitution of 

 the trees are somewhat iuipaired by the long, dry, hot summer. You 

 can't expect to have many apples next year, unless you nurse your 

 trees carefully. The teaching of the papers this -morning is good. 



President — This gentlemen must not hold this society responsible 

 for the teaching of Col. Haseltine, as it did not indorse his teaching. 



3fr. Murry — 1 confess I was wrong in advocating no pruning some 

 years. A gentleman just across the Missouri river planted trees from 

 the same nursery as mine. His theory was no pruning. His trees 

 produced some immense crops for a few years, but they have now be- 

 come so small that the same buyer paid ten to fifteen cents more per 

 bushel for our apples than for his. I would not have gathered the en- 

 tire crop of the orchard of which I speak as a gift. It is just a mass of 

 tangled brush. It is done for. The land is much richer than that 

 where our orchard is. With the let-alone system you may get two or 

 three good crops, after which you will not have to cull them much. 

 They will be all culls. I am satisfied that careful cultivation will 

 double the value of a crop of apples, especially in a dry season. 



Mr. Maitland — I think the distance apart trees are planted is a 

 very important factor. Those planted farthest apart live longer and 

 bear more regularly. I think forty or fifty feet none too much. I 

 gathered sixty-four bushels of apples from one Janet tree, about thirty- 

 five or forty years old, standing far away from other trees. Most of 



