90 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



called on Hon. Robert W. Furnas of Brownville, Nebraska, to 

 ask his advice regardingthe kind of land to purchase for commer- 

 cial orchard purposes and what varieties to plant. The Gov- 

 ernor kindly gave me the benefit of his experience and sug- 

 gested that w^hile they v^ere successful in growling fruit along 

 the Missouri river, it might be difficult to grow leading com- 

 mercial quantities of apples as far out as Saline county. At 

 that time people were in doubt whether corn could be grown 

 on the table lands of Saline. Governor Furnas advised the 

 planting of Siberians. He was confident that those could be 

 grown with fair success and that the scarcity of better fruit 

 would be such that people would buy them in absence of larger 

 apples. 



FIRST VENTURE WITH APPLES. 



My first venture was twenty acres of apple trees and Siber- 

 ians planted on sod land broken the previous summer. One 

 thousand one hundred of these were purchased of Samuel Bar- 

 nard at Table Rock. We lost but five. We did not fare as well 

 with a lot of tall four year-olds shipped from Illinois. 



From this beginning we gradually extended our home plant 

 until we had eighty acres of orchard. It was our original in- 

 tention to devote our efforts almost entirely to commercial or- 

 charding, but we soon fonnd that it required years of time to 

 secure such returns from a commercial orchard as would keep 

 up expenses. 



Many years ago we were engaged in contract planting of 

 timber claims and orchards for other parties. We planted the 

 trees and carried forward their cultivation for a series of years. 

 This line of work gave us a wide acquaintance in central and 

 western Nebraska and eastern Colorado. We became familiar 

 with soil and climatic conditions. We learned of the wonder- 

 ful fertility of the soil in western and central Nebraska, 

 We gradually acquired confidence in the ultimate outcome of 

 horticultural work under western conditions. We studied the 

 causes of failure of trees that had been already planted, visit- 

 ing thousands of farmers. We noted here and there an occa- 

 sional success and the conditions under which success had been 

 secured; also the numberless failures and the reasons therefor. 



