No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 611 



brought in the last ten years, you are going to slip up. Take the 

 average prices of the last ten years, and cut them right in two in the 

 middle. 



That is my belief. I may be mistaken about it, but I do think 

 those who are going to invest money and are looking for dividends, 

 should take the average apple price of the last ten years, and cut it 

 in two. If you get any more than that, it will be extra dividends on 

 the common stock. That is a cold blooded business proposition. It 

 iy easy' enough to talk about four or five dollars a bushel for apples 

 and so forth, but the average grower is not going to be able to sell 

 his fruit at those prices. 



Last week I went down to New York to the meeting of the 

 National League of Commission Merchants. I met gentlemen I 

 know from all over the United States, and sitting there in the Hotel 

 Astor was a group of people, big apple operators, two or three deal- 

 ers, and so forth, and one showed figures of a return he had received 

 that very day from three shipments of apples be had made to Europe. 

 I may not be accurate about the figures, but I think it was 3,200 

 barrels in all, the average returns 90 to |1.10. He said it would 

 figure out a little better than a dollar. That was simply a business 

 deal in a large way of eastern ajtples from old orchards poorly cared 

 for. There has been a lot of over-planting. I wish I had stayed in 

 the nursery business. 



Question: Do you dip your roots in lime-sulphur before planting? 



MK. HALE: No, I dip the tops, and I prune (he roots off pretty 

 close. I am a good deal of a crank in close root pruning in planting 

 a tree. After a tree is planted, right then go in for cultivation real 

 lively. Prof. Surface told you that cultivating along the line of the 

 row the first two or three years was what the trees needed. I abso- 

 lutely believed that myself once. But let me tell jou, I believe that 

 too, and I used to believe that the roots went out only a little ways 

 the first year. I absolutely believed that until several years ago I 

 l)lanted an apple orchard. Some of you have heard me tell of it be- 

 fore. I bought a piece of rough, cheap woodland, chopped the wood 

 down and burned it on the lot, and planted my orchard, the apple 

 trees 36 feet apart. While we were planting the aytples there, my 

 Italian foreman asked me why I didn't plant peaclips between the 

 apples. I said the ground was too rough, and peachos required bet- 

 ter tillage than we could give on that rough lot. lie said that it 

 was fine peach land, some of the best peach land I had, and he said, 

 ''You give me one interest in the crop, I plant the peaches and I 

 make the peaches grow like hell." I knew Louis' hell meant like 

 heaven. Wben he went out, my secretary, who is a close observer, 

 said I had better listen to Louis; whatever he says about making 

 trees grow goes. I made a contract and gave him an interest in it, 

 and we did interplant with peaches in this apple orchard. Louis 

 said, "I grow the olive in Italy in rough land ; I grow the coff'ee tree 

 in Brazil. I make the peach tree grow," so in planting he dug 

 a good big hole where the dynamite wasn't used, and where dyna- 

 mite was used, it dug it for him, and where the tree was planted, he 

 grubbed around about four feet in diameter. He dug away down 

 under and stirred it up and worked it up. I thought that ought to 



