DISCUSSION. 41 



Now in raising cherries, they want to be cultivated, and keep 

 the ground around the tree pretty loose; the looser the better, 

 and the faster then the tree wiU grow. When the tree becomes 

 hidebound and grows up around it and packed around the tree 

 it is not good for the tree; it becomes sickly and dies out in a 

 few years. My trees today sixteen years old are as nice and 

 green as those I put out a year ago. I see trees set out since mine 

 of the same kind of cherry; they are dead, limbs sawed off and 

 tops broken, all like that. Of course, last year my trees were 

 all full of bloom when the sleet came, and they all bent down to 

 the ground. If I hadn't tended my trees, the limbs would have 

 been dry and then would have broken off. I keep my trees ten- 

 der and they bent to the ground and they didn't break off, and 

 you see the result of what I got off from them here. I have six 

 acres south of town that I planted in fruit trees, and my cher- 

 ries and other trees that I put out have made a growth of three 

 feet this season. And cherries I put out a year ago this spring 

 had from each a quart of cherries on, as nice as I ever saw, and 

 I ordered the trees from Harrison Bros, of York, and I find 

 that that nursery suits me; and my old trees that I got, came 

 from that nursery, and I am very well satisfied with it. And I 

 have also got half a block that is planted into fruit from Shennan- 

 doah, Iowa. That is pretty nice fruit, but my trees are quite as 

 nice. I beheve, of course, in getting trees as near home as pos- 

 sible, and they suit the soil and climate better, and I think you 

 will do a great deal better to do that. I believe that is all I have 

 to say. (Applause). 



DISCUSSION. 



A Member: Did you say you cultivated, and did they in- 

 crease? 



Mr. Harris: My .old trees, I cultivate them every year, but 

 this is the first year I have not spaded around them because I 

 had too much to do. 



A Member: You spade around them every year? 



Mr. Harris: Yes sir. 



