STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 5 1 



FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. 

 H. P. Gould, Agricultural Depar-tment, Washington. 



It seems to me that there is a fundamental principle under- 

 lying this whole discussion, which, if not grasped, will render 

 the value of all that experience much less than it otherwise 

 would be. I want to try to sum up this discussion as it appeals 

 to me, and touch upon what I believe is the fundamental 

 principle underlying the whole thing. The reason why I am 

 prompted to do this rests in the fact that there were several 

 members who told of their experiences, and those experiences 

 were quite contrary to one another in their results. For instance, 

 some one spoke of the excellent results which they had secured 

 by pasturing hogs in their apple orchards, and Mr. Breed, who 

 was with you last year, I think, and who is a neighbor of Mr. 

 Dawes, gave you something of his experience in that method 

 of managing his orchard. If you would consult one of the best 

 growers, and perhaps fJic best grower of apples in the state of 

 New Jersey, he would tell you that he does not want any hogs 

 in his orchard — two experiences that are diametrically opposed, 

 and an orchard is an orchard wherever you find it, and a hog is 

 a hog wherever you find the beast ! Now what makes the 

 difiference in the result? It is one of fundamental principle, 

 and I am not going to attempt to state the principle until I refer 

 to one or two other conflicting instances. Mr. Dawes in his 

 discussion told you that where he had applied stable manure he 

 did not see any result whatever. Mr. DeCoster's experience is 

 that you have got to hang onto stable manure anyway. Two 

 experiences entirely different, with the same general treatment 

 of the orchards. 



Now when you face such a propostion as that, where two 

 orchards are handled in the same way, one giving decidedly 

 favorable results and the other no results at all. or at best, only 

 negative results where are you when it comes to knowing any 

 better what to do with your orchard? It is no accident that 

 such different results were obtained. I believe there is an 



