170 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



A. I do not know how old the trees are in your section. 



Mr. Pollard: The Ben Davis has given out with us in the last three 

 or four years. 



A. I know trees that are six and seven feet in circumference. 



Mr. Pollard: Are they Ben Davis? 



A. I do not know what varieties they are, but I believe Spitzenberg. 

 Will try to get a photograph for this society of a large tree. 



Chairman: Ladies and Gentlemen — It has delighted us to listen to 

 Mr. Smith talk, and I know we would like to hear him talk for two 

 hours longer and allow you to question him on this matter. He 

 has been a successful man and that is the fellow we want to talk to. I 

 wish we could line up about 400 of these kickers on the raising of 

 fruit in this country and let them look at him, and see if he, don't look 

 prosperous' when he talks about having raised 20,000 bushels of apples 

 which we know he has done. 



Mr. Williams: He is an old bachelor and don't have any family to 

 take care of. 



Chairman: He has produced the goods and that is what we are 

 looking for. 



Chairman: We will now have a paper by Mr. Val Keyser on the 

 subject of "Tendencies in Horticulture." 



Mr. Val Keyser spoke as follows: 



TENDENCIES IN HORTICULTURE. 



VAL KEYSER, LINCOLN. 



Since the introduction of the orchard heater there has been a wonder- 

 ful awakening among progressive orchardists concerning the possibilities 

 of eastern Nebraska for growing high class market apples. $600 an acre 

 for Wealthy apples, and $20,000 profit from sixty-five acres of orchard, 

 cannot help but awaken an interest in any fruit grower or farmer who 

 has an eye for business. Such profits were produced during the past 

 season in the orchard owned by Henry C. Smith, of Falls City, Neb., and 

 there are thousands of acres of good apple lands in the river counties, 

 from Burt county down to the Kansas line, which could be made equally 

 profitable. There are also many districts in the counties of Johnson, 

 Gage and Pawnee, which can be grown to apples and made commercially 

 profitable. 



The writer has been a student of horticulture for the last ten years 

 and had the pleasure of spraying four demonstration orchards in soutli- 

 eastern Nebraska during the season of 1906. It was at this time that 

 Mr. Smith's attention was called to the possibilities of his orchard, if 

 only proper methods were applied. 



The people of eastern Nebraska are not awake to the possibilities of 

 their country. In the writer's judgment (and this has been verified by 



