SPRAYING 103 



" gravel roads.' ' But at that time I found 

 there were many who would argue the question 

 just as there were many who argued that spray- 

 ing was of no benefit to an orchard. When we 

 first came to Hickory Hill our trees were too 

 young to bear much fruit and in the summer we 

 gave the orchard proper attention and still had 

 time on our hands. Consequently I conceived 

 the idea of leasing all the old unsprayed or- 

 chards in the neighborhood. My idea in this 

 was twofold: first to train a gang of green 

 hands who never before had seen a spray ma- 

 chine, and, second, to educate the neighbors to 

 the value of spraying. The idea of making 

 money from the leased orchards was of very 

 secondary importance to the value of the first 

 two considerations — and it is a good thing, for 

 we certainly never made any profit on our 

 various deals. 



At that time I had had some years of experi- 

 ence in teaching fruit-growers the best horti- 

 cultural methods and most of my efforts had 

 been received so warmly that I was more or 

 less puffed with the idea that I had pretty 

 thoroughly spread the gospel of spraying over 

 the whole of my state. I was very quickly dis- 

 illusioned on this point, however, for nearly 

 every orchard owner whom I interviewed was 

 decidedly skeptical of the value of spraying — 

 and if the owner was not skeptical, his wife 



