56 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



nature chooses to give us but largely upon what we direct that 

 her sunshine, her rain, and her soil shall produce ; and the 3 

 tools which we can use to control nature's forces in the orciiard 

 are the pruning saw, the cultivator, and the sprayer. I wish to 

 close this talk with words that New England's most famous 

 fruit grower — J. H. Hale — used in an address many years ago. 

 I think he would reiterate them today : "Culture, culture, cul- 

 ture is the sure road to success, while any other scheme of 

 handling the orchard is nearly sure to lead the other way."' 



Mr. Washburn : I have been a farmer for a number of 

 years, and I think I have learned one thing thoroughly, and that 

 is that cultivation is the main thing in raising fruit or any other 

 crop. 



Mr. Rounds : I do not usually prune my orchard much, 

 but last- spring I went out one morning when there was a good 

 crust and pruned some of my Spy trees and about all the fancy 

 fruit I raised this year grew on those trees. The cultivation was 

 done by hogs. I had an acre or so fenced off where I kept my 

 hogs, and about all the fruit I raised was in this portion of the 

 orchard. 



Mr. Gardner : The use of hogs in the orchard reminds 

 me of what I have heard in relation to a country in Africa. 

 There is a country there which is pretty nearly uncivil'zed. 

 They have no tools for plowing the soil, but when they want to 

 get the soil stirred up a little bit for plantmg their crops, they 

 tiu-n their hogs loose and they will root it up some. Now our 

 methods of plowing the soil and cultivating it today, with mod- 

 ern implements, are somewhat ahead of the methods used in 

 Africa, and I think that to just the extent that our methods 

 of general cultivation are ahead of the primitive methods of 

 plowing and cultivating, so the use of our best tools in the or- 

 chard is ahead of hogs. I do not wish to be understood that 

 hogs are not good, but the use of the ])low and cultivation will 

 go ahead of the swine. 



Mr. Leland: I wish to emphasize the remarks made by 

 Prof. Gardner in relation to the work done by my neighbor, Mr. 

 Washburn. He has tried cultivation, and good results are to 

 be seen, and those who have been permitted to see his orchard 

 the past summer cannot help seeing that it is a paying invest- 

 ment to cultivate, and as the professor said, the expense of some 



