No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 571 



SOME MISTAKES IN FRUIT GROWING 



By C. E. BASSETT, Fennville, Michigan. 



I wish to speak of some of our common mistakes. It is our ordi- 

 nary practice to boast of our successes and not to say anytliing about 

 our defeats. 



But some defeats are better than some successes, especially if we 

 courageously meet defeat and are not discouraged. It is then we 

 learn a valuable lesson. Real failure consists in failing to rise up 

 after we have been knocked down. 



We must start with the idea that we are bound to have defeats, 

 but those who overcome them gain the reward. 



We are falling into a bad practice in the way Ave secure our 

 nursery stock. The old practice was to purchase trees in the fall and 

 have them heeled in, but the large nurserymen found it a difficult 

 matter to make a fall delivery and so they followed a new process, 

 erected large frost-proof cellars and stacked The nursery stock up in 

 them like so much hay, none of the trees being heeled in. 



In consequence of this abuse we have had a great deal of failure 

 in getting a stand, especially of peach trees. 



It is unnatural and wrong to have trees stored like that, and 

 we do not care for cellar-stored trees, but insist on fall delivery for 

 two reasons. First, we get the pick of the stock; second, we can take 

 good care of the trees, trimming the broken roots off when we heel 

 them in and then they are ready to be set out the first thing in the 

 spring. 



Cellar-stored trees are lacking in vitality and in some cases are 

 absolutely dead. 



Our greatest fault in Michigan horticulture is that everywhei'e 

 we have "skinned" the land. We must build up <mr land and make 

 it richer. We have drawn our cheques upon the soil fertility, and 

 have now little or nothing in the bank, and thus trees already weak- 

 ened by cellar wintering are also placed in an unfavorable soil. 



Many of us are not adapted to fruit growing at all. Many re- 

 tired business and professional men are coming from the city. 

 These men often make mistakes in their way of handling their or- 

 chards, but they can often teach us that we need better business 

 methods on our farms. 



It is a great tribute to the occupation that it can yield some re- 

 turn without any business method in selling. As a rule we have no 

 say in the price at which we sell, or at which we buy. 



We need in our horticultural and agricultural processes better 

 business methods. We need the system of co-operation which is cor- 

 recting some of our mistakes. 



We are attempting to pass an act in Congress to meet the faults 

 in marketing our fruits. We are doing this partly in consequence of 

 the Canadian "Fruit Marks Act," which has increased their output 

 and decreased ours, 



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