NINETEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 77 



remarkably handsome pears, just as handsome as any Califor- 

 nia fruit, and certainly better quality. For quality we are 

 ahead. Connecticut has grown a great many pears, and I am 

 sorry to see there are so few of them grown at the present day. 

 I think there is an opportunity to make them profitable. 



A Member: Mr. Chairman, can we have Question 



No. 5? 



President Gold: Question 5 is called for. "Can apple 

 orchards be profitably grown on land too stony to plow?" We 

 would like to have a reply to that question from some of those 

 who have tried to plant apple orchards on that kind of ground. 

 Mr. J. H. Hale is notoriously cited as having raised some good 

 apple orchards on pretty stony ground. We would like to 

 have either Mr. Hale or Mr. Coleman tell us how they do it. 



Mr. J. H. Hale: Mr. President, we failed to find any 

 land that was too stony to plow. At one of our Grange 

 meetings there was a fellow who said, after he had eaten 

 eight or nine pieces of pie, that it was not very good pie. 

 I never saw any poor pie, and that is the way it has been 

 with Mr. Coleman and me about apple lands. Mr. Cole- 

 man and I have been up against some pretty rocky land, 

 but we have not seen yet any land that was too rocky to 

 plow. We did have one of our plowmen come in and ask' 

 where the soil was that he should plow. (Laughter). I 

 do not know whether there is any land in Connecticut 

 that is too stony to plow or not. Where is the land that 

 this question refers to. Mr. Chairman? I do not know. 

 It is not over on our rock-ribbed farm in Seymour, neither 

 is it on the rocky ledges of Glastonbury. If there is any 

 such land in Connecticut, I would like to know where it 

 is. I think that we can grow apples on most any land 

 that we have got in the state if it has got soil enough so 

 you can plow it and cultivate the trees. You can grow 

 apples there because there are the elements in the soil that 

 give the trees just what they need. There is a lot of land 

 which is so rough that it is useless for most agricultural 



