No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 605 



edge. All the horticultural meetings I attended, Mr. President, in 

 my early days, the whole talk — I was living in Connecticut, as I do, 

 not far from Boston, and the old horticultural society there, one of 

 the largest and best maintained in the early days — but the whole talk 

 at those meetings was about varieties. 



When 1 went to worship at the feet of Marshall P. Wilder, the 

 first thing he did was to take me out to his home orchard, and show 

 me with great pride his 813 varieties of pears; but he didn't know 

 any more about commercial orchard culture than Surface does, not 

 a bit; didn't talk about it. (Laughter.) The only thing in the early 

 days, was simply varieties, and the knowledge of the fungus troubles 

 and insect pests, the science of feeding the plant and the tree with 

 the necessary plant food to build up the perfect tree and the perfect 

 fruit, wasn't known oi understood by the growers, and had hardly 

 been touched upon by the scientists. I remember Avhen the first talk 

 in any public meeting in America about the establishment of an agri- 

 culture experiment station, to study the science of agriculture plant 

 foods and the influence of the soil on the plants, and the gentlemen 

 there, the few that were interested and talked about it, when they 

 began to talk about nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, it was 

 simply a drug store talk to us farmers who were there. We hadn't 

 knowledge of it. But with the coming of the first agricultural 

 station in my own State, and their later establishment in every state 

 of the Union, the establishment of the agricultural colleges, the great 

 number of studious men and women who have gone into the science 

 of agriculture and horticulture, we have a knowledge that has come 

 to the aid of orcharding, and it has come to be a profession within 

 recent years, but even then we haven't lived up to our privileges ; we 

 are only just beginning to think around the edges of the great Or- 

 chard opportunity there is in this country. Of course, a few pro- 

 gressive orchardists, following out their own practical ideas, and sup- 

 plementing them with all the science they can get from the experiment 

 stations and colleges and agriculture departments of State and 

 National government, have gone farther ahead than some of the 

 rest of us, and there is almost, I might say, a science in orchard prac- 

 tice today, but only in a very limited way. In the handling of our 

 fruit for market, we had very little intelligent business idea about it, 

 and it took our felloAv fruit growers of the far west to turn the trick 

 — they were stimulated in two ways, — first, by the scientists, to pro- 

 duce the most beautiful and attractive fruit possible; and being 

 8,000 miles away from the great markets, they must put their very 

 best foot forward. They had to pay |250 or |300 a car to get into 

 our markets. They couldn't aff'ord to do that with inferior grown 

 fruits, or crates or packing, and so within the last ten years, practi- 

 cally, has come about a show of fruit in our fruit stands and markets 

 and upon our tables that has opened the eyes of the land owners 

 of the east. We have to give credit to the far northwest for the 

 great stimulus that has come into apple orchard life and management 

 within the last few years. They are sending us very beautiful fruit, 

 and to get anybody's pocketbook open, you have to get their eyes 

 open first, and the northwestern people in their apples have done 

 this. We in the far south — I say "we," because in my orchard ramb- 

 lings I have gron 1,200 miles away and planted another peach 

 orchard in Georgia — being so far away from the great markets, having 



