STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 43 



in many cases entirely wor;hless for family use, and many of the 

 noted varieties can be greatly improved by care and culture. 



The first to be done in all cases is to decide that you ^vill make 

 fruit growing profitable and then study up on that subject so that 

 you will thoroughly understand the needs and requirements of the 

 particular branch that you have decided to engage in ; if it is the 

 apple, the soil should be well undei'stood, and the kind best adapted 

 to that purpose selected and then fit it thoroughly as for some crop ; 

 then when your tree starts you will take pride in it every time your 

 eye beholds it ; you feel that your labor is being rewarded with a 

 thrifty tree before there is any indication of fruit to be sold. If 

 possible have all rows straight, especially if in a place that you 

 visit often ; if not too expensive I would at least clear all obstruc- 

 tions from the points or places that the trees should occupy in order 

 to make the rows perfectly straight. In our own case we have made 

 every line straight, in some cases requiring the stone tools with 

 powder and quite an amount of team labor to accomplish it. After 

 the stone was out the place would be filled in with soil, and then 

 put in the tree, and now after a number of years we can pick out 

 those trees and admire them as they occupy the space once taken 

 up by a stone. In one case the boulder seemed almost too large 

 and requiring too great an expense to remove, and so the tree was 

 planted about two feet out of line and just as close to the rock as 

 it could be set ; it grew well for three or four years ; it was in a 

 row that anyone could see from the farm road, and every time 

 apparently that we passed that way we saw it, or if we took our 

 friends that way they would remark "there is one iree out of line," 

 then an explanation would follow. It happened to te a Baldwin 

 tree from a Western nursery, and one spring it failed to put forth 

 its leaves and upon examination was found to be winter-killed, root 

 and branch ; then at an expense of about three dollars that stone 

 was removed and a new tree set out, and a portion of the interest 

 is paid on that outlay regularly every time we pass that way. 



The trees should be procured from some reliable nursery or per- 

 haps seedlings and then top graft, for if a particular variety is 

 bought, that particular variety is expected to grow. We had a 

 little experience in that line the very first purchase that we ever 

 made — a half dozen pear trees were bought of a tree peddler one 

 of them was to be a President. The tree was well cared for and it 

 grew finely ; in a year or two a single pear appeared ; it was watched 



