1865.] president's address. 9 



profits. There never was a more fatal error. Cole says, in his excellent little 

 Fruit book : " A farmer would not plant an orchard, thinking he should not 

 live to eat the fruit ; his son had the same views ; but the grandson planted 

 for posterity, yet his predecessors shared in the fruit also, for the grandfather 

 drank hogsheads of the cider." 



" Found it ! " Is the evidence in the young orchards that we so often see, 

 and which so often hold out no promise whatever of future good ? In many 

 instances they have been planted so hastily and carelessly, that it is a miracle 

 if they lived at all, and they are left thenceforth to take care of themselves. 

 The farmer thinks his whole duty is performed when once the roots of his 

 young trees are under the surface of the earth ; and then it they do not thrive 

 and produce fruit abundantly, he at once comes to the conclusion that his soil 

 is not adapted to the growth of fruits, abandons his trees, and turns to his corn 

 and potatoes for more speedy profits. If he serves them as he did his trees, he 

 will, meet with the same results. Who has not seen these young orchards in 

 this state of utter neglect, and seeing, has not felt an uncomfortable, choking 

 sensation as he has watched the struggle going on between the trunks of the 

 trees and the turf about them, with an overwhelmning conviction that the lat- 

 ter was to be the victim, and that the trees, and the labor of the farmer in 

 planting them, were soon to perish together. 



Nothing is more needless, than that fruits should command such exhorbitant 

 prices in our markets. There is capacity enough in our farms and lands to 

 keep pace, with a proper effort, with our ever increasing population, furnishing 

 a full supply at reasonable prices to the consumer, and yet remunerative ones 

 to the produces. 



Farmers should learn, that in no way can they possibly realize a surer, or 

 more abundant reward for their labor, than in the cultivation of fruit. If they 

 cannot plant and cultivate trees for themselves, let them do it for those who are 

 to come after them ; and in nine cases out of ten it will prove that they become 

 partakers of the first fruits themselves. 



Let all learn, who would cultivate fruit successfully, that the planting of trees 

 is not the only thing to be done. The trees must not only be planted, but plant- 

 ed carefully and skilfully, and when planted, cared for with constant vigilance 

 and unremitting attention. 



All these evils and errors, with a score of others that come crowding upon 

 one, in taking a hasty glance of the subject, are susceptible of correction , and 

 there is no work more pertinent to our organization, or which comes more di- 

 rectly within our sphere than this. We need not yet fold our hands under the 

 impression that our labors are at an end, or that the objects of our association 

 have been fully accomplished. 



But lest my friend, alluded to, should think that the hints I have thrown out 

 are insufficient to show that the work of the Society is not finished, I will 

 very briefly allude to one other matter, (if you will bear with me for a moment 

 longer,) and one which is likely to engage our attention, and demand our labor, 

 for some time to come. It probably has not escaped the observation of any 



