81 



be made, President Margeson, I believe, has one or two other 

 things on his mind which he would like to bring before you. 



PEESIDENT IVIARGESON: Mr. Hardy reported fun- 

 gous diseases noticeably absent, while gypsy moth caterpil- 

 lars and rosebugs were plenty. 



There are a few things I should like to speak about as 

 President of the Association. All present are more or less 

 interested in fruit growing. We are all growing it more or 

 less and we might, in a general way, review some of the ex- 

 periences of 1917. 



I think we were all especially hopeful in the early sea- 

 son of 1917, We had a large apple bloom and many of the 

 other fruits bloomed very profusely, especially cherries, but 

 we found later on that our high hopes were somewhat disap- 

 pointed. I know especially in my own case in regard to cher- 

 ries we found we had a very large set, but more than three- 

 quarters of those dropped off, and we scarcely got any sweet 

 cherries, and I think this condition must have been verj^ gen- 

 eral. The sour cherries came through but not in as large 

 numbers, but very good fruit. 



We also had a very heavy apple crop. You know, we were 

 expecting a bumper crop of apples throughout the United 

 States, and when we came to harvesting the crop, we found 

 we had a very small one, especially in New York State, where 

 there were some four or five million barrels short of a normal 

 crop. 



Then we all know some of the experiences we had re- 

 garding help in 1917. Something has already been said in 

 our meeting this afternoon about the help outlook. We found 

 it very hard last year to get help that was qualified to take 

 care of the orcrard. and our various fruit trees, etc. Then we 

 found it very difficult to obtain help for picking the fruit. 

 In the small fruit line, I do not think I ever had as much trou- 

 ble in getting boys and girls to do the work. It seemed as 

 though when you paid the boys twice the normal wage, they 

 were not satisfied. 



But on the whole, I believe those of us who were able to 



