TWENTY-FIRST AX X UAL MEETIXG. 261 



nuisl be controlled, and so one crop ought not to be followed 

 with another which belongs to practically the same botanical 

 family. Why? If you will examine the potato plant and 

 some others, you will see that they all belong to one botanical 

 family. Such crops as that ought not to be followed one by 

 the other on the same plot. The Colorado potato beetle found 

 that out in 1875. When he could not find one to eat, he ate 

 the other. The beetle that destroyed one will feed on the 

 other. Further than that, there are other crops which are 

 deep-rooted, and those that draw largely from the i)otash in 

 the soil. If you follow with crops of the same kind vou will 

 still continue to take up the fertility of the soil, and you will 

 have to add to it very largely from the fertilizer, and that 

 takes money. But I must not stop to go into this important 

 phase of the subject in detail to-day. It has been mv custom 

 to put on a crop of peas, because that is not a particularly- 

 deep-rooted plant, finish that, and then once in a certain num- 

 ber of years we can put egg plant or something like that on, 

 and so on around the circle once in six or seven vears. 



Now, for just a few minutes, I want to call vour attention 

 to one crop that I take considerable personal pride in, and 

 that is cantaloupe. It is one of the crops that I am growing, 

 and I feel like emphasizing it a little over all of the other mar- 

 ket garden crops. The demand for the cantaloupe increases. 

 The prices have been pretty fair. The man that has got the 

 soil and knows how to grow tbem can do well. The man 

 that wants to grow cantaloupe must first have the soil that is 

 the right kind of soil to grow them on. Of course, that is the 

 case with any kind of a crop, but a man that is trving to 

 grow any crop, in addition to the soil that is adapted for that 

 crop, must know the peculiarities of the crop that he is trying 

 to grow if he is going to be successfiU. For example, b\- put- 

 ting cantaloupe on to a heavy soil, all you can do will not make 

 it a success. By putting it on light soil, and starting it right 

 with proper fertilization, if that is kept up until the end, every- 

 thing else being equal, you will grow good crops. The can- 



