STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 33 



through the advancing season up to the rewards of the harvest. 

 To bring together this knowledge and put it in form to aid each 

 other is the object that has invited the fruit growers of our 

 State to assemble here at this time. 



Each passing year brings its special lesson. This past year a 

 record has been so plainly written that no one can fail to read it 

 aright. Apples are our leading commercial fruit. The past 

 season has not been generally a fruitful one. Some trees and 

 some orchards have rewarded their owners with a reasonably 

 good crop of fruit. Many other trees and most other orchards 

 have given but little fruit. There is a reason for this. The 

 books do not show the reason for this — it is written nowhere else 

 but on the trees. 



Your president has taken the time the past autumn to look 

 around among the orchards over a wide territory of the leading 

 apple producing portion of our State for the express purpose of 

 making observations on the apple crop. In every direction, in 

 every orchard without an exception, and almost with every tree 

 the lesson was plain. The apples of the year were on orchards 

 under cultivation and on trees that had recently been liberally 

 fertilized, or in a few cases in orchards that bore lightly the year 

 before. More fertilization and better treatment of trees v/as 

 written all over the orchards of the State the past season, and 

 so plainly that there can be no overlooking the lesson. This 

 Society has before called attention to this crying want of the 

 orchards of the State. If the barren trees and the dead branches 

 of the orchards would but force the attention of owners to active 

 efforts for the remedy, a liberal compensation for the loss of the 

 crop would then be realized. A large part of the orchards of 

 the State, especially the trees that have been some time in bear- 

 ing, are hungry for the food with which to nourish a generous 

 fruitage. It is time this lesson was taken home by every grower 

 in its full importance. It is the one great demand calling for 

 attention by growers ahead of everj^ other. The growing of 

 fruit in the ofif years is where the supply comes from when most 

 wanted, and where the money is made by those who are wise 

 enough to grow the needed supply. 



There are two ways through which the supply of fertilizing 

 material needed to promote the fruitage of trees may be pro- 

 vided. One is by cultivation. This serves to destroy the grass 

 and other vegetable growth around and about the tree, thus 



