34 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



leaving the full strength of the soil and its contents for the 

 support of the trees. It also sets free each year a measure of 

 the elements of fertility contained in the soil and gives it up to 

 the use of the tree for the growth of fruit. The importance of 

 this method of treatment for orchards has heretofore been 

 pressed to the attention of fruit growers by our Society and is 

 already bearing results. It is not claimed that cultivation alone 

 will for all time be sufficient for the full wants of trees. That 

 it will do much towards it is evidenced the past year by the 

 loaded trees wherever the cultivation has been introduced. 



The other method of furnishing trees with their needed fertili- 

 zation is by the application of manures to the surface of the soil 

 without the cultivation. This is to receive attention in the 

 program prepared for this meeting and need not take further 

 time at this early stage of our proceedings. 



Fruit growing in this State has been and now is almost 

 entirely a branch of the mixed farming of the farm on which the 

 orchard is located. It never will be found that fruit growing 

 can be made the successful business it is capable of until it is 

 made a specialty and given the time and attention its best 

 interests require. There will be years of general bounty, like a 

 year ago, when the profit, if indeed there is any, is small. So 

 there will be other years, like the present, when only the well 

 cared for trees will give a crop. Then it is that the specialist, 

 with his trees that have received the full attention their best 

 estate required, realizes the reward his attentive care deserved. 



During the past year the entomological field has received care- 

 ful attention on the part of the officers of our Society, in so far 

 as this matter was left in their charge by the action taken at 

 the annual meeting one year ago. The action taken by them 

 and the results following are familiar to all. The present stand- 

 ing of the brown-tail moth invasion and the attitude of the 

 State in the defense against it is a matter on which you are to be 

 further informed during the course of this meeting. Certainly 

 this Society deserves well to be complimented on its prompt 

 action of a year ago on this important matter. 



Your attention is invited to the fact that the transactions of 

 this Society for the year 1904, and which embraced the proceed- 

 ings of the annual meeting held in November of that year, which 

 are made a part of the annual report of the commissioner of 



