HOUTlCULTUKli IN CAiNADA. 1U7 



holds the snow and nrevents the free^ine of the roots. Tf your orchard 

 has not been cultivated I vould advise you to cultivate it just about 

 as shallow as you can the first time, for If you cultivate deep you cut 

 off all the feeders and will give the tree quite a shock. 



To plow around these trees every man should have a plow with 

 one horse, and have a clevis not less than fifteen inches long. We pass 

 ? wire through the whiffletree and then the whiffletree can not touch 

 the tree. I plow away from the trees for a couple of furrows one year 

 and the next year I plow towards the trees. Be sure you do not cut 

 into the trees. I should be sure that I had some grafting wax all pre- 

 pared so that If the whifflletree tears the bark you can fix it right 

 there and then. 



Now we come to the picking of the apples. Have you co-operation 

 in the apple business here? If not, heaven help you; you are just like 

 a lot of threads. A thread is not strong at all, it will not hold unless 

 it is doubled, tripled or quadrupled. We farmers are the biggest duffers 

 alive; we take anything they offer and when we come to buy we have 

 to give anything they ask. If you farmers in this state of Nebraska 

 will co-operate and stick together you can get anything in Nebraska 

 that you please because you are seventy per cent of the population. 



What do we do? In our country we had no co-operation. A buyer 

 came along — I had a small orchard in those days — and he offered me 

 $100 for that orchard. I said no, it cost me that to prune the trees in 

 the spring. He went away and three or four days later he came back 

 and offered me $90 and at another time a week later he offered me $85. 

 Now, wasn't that co-operation? You bet, but it was on the wrong side 

 lor me. But now we have co-operation. We had a hard time to get 

 it; there is no more stubborn man than the average Canadian farmer; 

 you cannot get him to do anything that his father did not do. We asked 

 the farmers to come to a meeting. Another man and myself concluded 

 we wanted it. We thought we required $5 or $10 to buy oooks, but 

 when we asked them to put up $5 their feet got cold and there were 

 only tour men left in the hall. The next year we got the thing started. 

 We got sixteen farmers and these farmers proved to others that this 

 thing was good to do and today we have an association of 350 apple 

 growers. We have uniform packing; we can send a train load if we 

 want to because we are putting up these ai^ples uniformly. There is 

 one seeing eye over all. We get a good, price for our apples, buyers' 

 men ai"e willing to pay a good price for them and we receive every red 

 cent for them before the apples leave the platform. Formerly we 

 waited until they were paid for them, and sometimes we never were 

 paid. We once had a man in our country that addressed a body of 

 farmers and he said if the farmers are lacking in anything they are 

 lacking in co-operation and were jealous of each other. We are jealous 

 of each other. 



Just another word and then I am done. Have you got any inspection 

 in your country? Have you government inspection and condemnation 



