TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING. 185 



point himself and everybjdy else. Two months a.q;o my son 

 and myself predicted for 1912 the biggest peach crop that 

 we ever produced, but now we estimate that the probabihty 

 is that we are going to have the smallest one we ever had. 

 That change has taken place in two months, and, in fact, was 

 wrought in one single night. One single cold night made 

 that change. Of course, that relates to the peach crop. Now 

 about the prospect of over-production of apples in the future", 

 those who have known me in the horticultural line here for 

 the last thirty-five or forty years know that I have always 

 been an optimist. I am to-day, and hope to remain so to the 

 end of my days. At" the same time, it is always well to state 

 the facts as they are. Just at the present time, starting back 

 a few vears ago, there was a tremendous craze for apple plant- 

 ing, and it has been going on at such a pace, that if one- 

 fourth of the trees that are planted live and produce half a 

 crop, you must not expect, in ten or fifteen years from now, 

 wdien those trees come into bearing that apples can be sold 

 at the present prices. On the other hand, the growers can- 

 live and continue in the business at much of a reduction of 

 present prices. Those who have been in it an}- length of time 

 know the expense of cultivation, spraying, pruning, and 

 caring for an orchard of trees. Of course, that expense 

 varies according to the size of the orchard, and runs up from 

 hundreds, in the case of a small orchard, to thousands of dol- 

 lars, according to the size of the plantation. There is no 

 question about it, — there has been a tremendous planting of 

 apple trees. I was at Baltimore in December, at a meeting 

 of the Maryland Horticultural Society. At one of the ses- 

 sions the Governor presided over the afternoon meeting, and 

 in glorifying Maryland and its products he stated to us that 

 in one section of one county in- western Maryland they had 

 planted during the last year over three hundred thousand 

 apple trees; that there was one company in western Maryland 

 that had or would plant eight hundred thousand apple trees 

 on, I do not know how many thousands of acres of land. So 

 it went in stories of large plantings of ten, twenty, thirty, 



