CONDENSED CONCLUSION. 



Tillage, fertilization, pruning and spraying are the chief factors 

 that enter into good care of an orchard. One or more of these may 

 sometimes be omitted or poorly done without any serious results. 

 To some extent tillage may replace fertilizers, or vice versa. A thrifty 

 orchard may resist the attacks of disease. Some years there are few 

 insects or fungi, so that spraying is not so much needed. A farmer fre- 

 quently gets good results from some one of these factors and becomes 

 so impressed with its importance that he makes a hobby of it, to the 

 exclusion of all the others. But the most successful apple-grower is the 

 man who keeps a proper balance between all four agencies and does not 

 expect good care in one respect to make up for neglect in other ways. 

 There is not a recommendation in this report that has not been success- 

 fully carried out by some growers ; but few men have given attention to 

 all the questions, though some of the most successful have come very 

 near to doing so. 



But these factors are not all. The successful man must study ; he 

 must learn something of the life processes of the apple-tree ; he must 

 know the most serious insect and fungous diseases, and why certain 

 treatment is effective in combating them; he must know something of 

 the drainage, humus and other soil problems. 



No set of rules can cover all these points. The apple-grower must 

 go into the orchard and get acquainted with his trees. As one farmer 

 expressed it, he must go into the orchard occasionally and say to his 

 trees, " Good morning ! Is there anything that you would like to-day?" 

 There are many more or less successful farmers who never really see 

 the apple-tree they see only the crop. Any treatment that will 

 temporarily increase the crop seems to them to be good, but this very 

 treatment may be destroying the prospects for future crops. 



Nor is success in orcharding wholly dependent on a large crop. 

 There is a business side to the question. Does it pay to grow cheap 

 apples to be evaporated or to be sold at the Ipwest market price, or 

 would it pay better to grow a first-class article that costs more and 

 then commands the highest price? A few men in each county are 

 known as growers of good apples. Some other men grow just as 

 good apples and yet haye no reputation. Sometimes it is because 



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