THE SUCCESSFUL ORCHARD. 199 



Minnesota in the corn districts, which are primarily given over to 

 the growing of corn and hogs and cattle. In the midst of that 

 level prairie is a farm which has an orchard of a little less than 

 four acres. It was planted by a man who had an enthusiasm for 

 trees. It passed into the hands of the present owner, perhaps 

 eight or ten years ago. The orchard was planted from 1891 to 

 1894, and so is about twenty-two to twenty-five years old. 



In 1915 our men first succeeded in interesting the owner in 

 putting on a joint demonstration on pruning and poultry for the 

 benefit of the neighborhood. They held an orchard meeting and 

 got the ' neighbors to come in and see how to prune the trees. 

 After that they sprayed the chicken house. The owner finally 

 became so much interested that he decided to use the orchard for 

 a demonstration in spraying. So they sprayed certain trees and 

 left others unsprayed for comparison. They sprayed three times. 

 In all the years before 1915 the owners had gotten enough apples 

 out of that three and one-half-acre orchard to supply the family, 

 and one year they had fruit to sell. But, as the result of spraying 

 this season they had a gross return in money of over $600. 



Naturally the owner became interested. He discovered all 

 at once that was the best three acres he had. In 1916 he wanted 

 the demonstration again. I had the privilege of running down 

 there one Saturday when the apple harvest was on. He had 

 invited in all the countryside to his orchard. He had left a few 

 trees unsprayed. I think I never saw a worse attack of scab and 

 insects than I saw on some of those trees. I don't dare tell you 

 the difference between the sprayed and the unsprayed trees be- 

 cause you wouldn't believe me, but I can say it was a remarkable 

 difference. This year he had gross returns of about $800 out of 

 that orchard. The varieties were just the ordinary varieties 

 gotten from our local nurseries in central Iowa from 1891 to 1895. 



A Member: Was that fruit sold locally? 



Prof. Beach : That fruit was sold locally and without pack- 

 ing. He put up only about 100 barrels. Aside from that it was 

 sold to the farmers who are more interested in growing corn than 

 they are in growing apples. I saw one box of Jonathans that 

 Saturday that was auctioned off to one of the farmers. He paid 

 at the rate of over $2.00 a bushel to get that box of selected apples. 



We believe that if we can get a few locations like that in 

 every county it can't help but stimulate interest among our peo- 

 ple in taking better care of their orchard trees. 



I wish to give you another illustration. I have here some of 



