STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 43 



ripening influence of the autumn sun can bring out to its fullest per- 

 fection ? And when the pickers come along to gather in the fruits of 

 your orchard, are 3'our trees so pruned that they can readily pass 

 through the trees and gather the fruit, or must they take a saw with 

 them to clear the way ? My friend, can you answer this question in 

 the affirmative? While one may, I fear there are too many that 

 can't. Again, have you given your trees all the fertilizing material 

 that is necessary to bring them up to their highest stage of perfec- 

 tion ? If not, then again I say, you have failed to derive the great- 

 est amount of profit from the smallest amount of ground, and until 

 you bring every tree in your orchard up to its greatest bearing 

 capacity, I shall claim that "four acres are enough" for farmers in 

 general. 



We have all noticed in some parts of our orchards that some of 

 our trees were better than trees in different parts of the orchard ; 

 now what is the cause for it? Have we ever stopped to think that 

 the trees standing at the foot of the hill, or in the fence corners, 

 were the best ones in the orchard, and what is the cause for it? It 

 is this : More or less of the dressing that has been applied to the 

 soil has been washed to the lower parts of the orchard by the rains, 

 thus doubly enriching those trees on the lower part of the orchard 

 over their neighbors that stand on higher ground. Now may we 

 not learn a lesson from this, that the tree on the lower part of the 

 orchard bears double the fruit that the one on the higher ground 

 does, one is equally as well located as the other, as far as the nat- 

 ural conditions of the soil are concerned, and the one would be 

 equally as prolific as the other if it only had the same amount of 

 plant food to sustain it? 



Now, gentlemen, would it not seem foolish to you for that man to 

 set out another acre of orchard when half that he already has on 

 his farm is starving for something to eat, something to make it grow? 

 Well, now is not this just the condition of nine-tenths of the orchards 

 of Maine to-day? Yes, I think it is, and I think it is time for the 

 most of us to stop increasing our acreage and give better care and 

 attention to what we have already on hand. 



In the fall of the year when we go into our orchards to select 

 fruit to carry to our fairs, do we go to the poor, ill-fed, scrubby, 

 limby trees that are half dead with neglect to select our samples 

 from ? No, certainly not ; it is right the reverse. We go to the 

 trees that have been so pruned that they will not be overloaded with 



