i64 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



Stephen Hoyt's Sons, at New Canaan, with the new Green 

 Mountain grape, just ripening, as a leading feature. 



June 15, 1897, on the farm of President J. H. Hale, at 

 South Glastonbury, was gathered the largest and most 

 important meeting ever held by the Society. Upon invita- 

 tion large delegations were present from the state horticul- 

 tural societies of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 

 Rhode Island, eastern New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl- 

 vania, Delaware and Maryland, as well as from the Massa- 

 chusetts Fruit Growers' Association and Massachusetts, 

 Rhode Island, and New Jersey State Boards of Agriculture ; 

 so that besides some 300 Connecticut fruit growers there 

 were in attendance nearly one hundred of the most promi- 

 nent fruit growers of the northeastern states of our Union. 



Since the last visit of the Society, President Hale had 

 added largely to the acreage of fruits under cultivation, so 

 that nearly two hundred acres of peach orchards, many 

 thousands of Japanese plums, 35 acres of strawberries, 

 experimental plots of many new fruits, and considerable 

 space devoted to chestnuts grafted on native sprouts, were 

 features of interest. 



The great center of interest, however, was the irrigating 

 plant, some sixty acres of the farm being piped under 

 ground and abundantly supplied by water from a storage 

 reservoir back on the hills. Sub-irrigation from perforated 

 iron pipes, surface irrigation in open ditches and from 

 troughs with water-gates at each row of strawberries, 

 showed the turning of water into fruits in a most prac- 

 tical manner, and new lessons were learned by nearly all 

 present. 



After lunch in the apple orchard, a general fruit 

 growers' conference was organized, with Hon. Franklin 

 Dye, of New Jersey, as chairman. Addresses were made 

 by Professor Wesley Webb, of Dover, Delaware ; W. F. 

 Taber, of Poughkeepsie, vice president of the eastern New 

 York society ; George A. Rogers, horticultural editor of 

 New England Partner; W. F. Allen, Jr., Salisbury, Mary- 

 land ; Professor E. H. Jenkins, Connecticut Agricultural 

 Experiment Station ; Professor W. A. Taylor, Assistant 

 Pomologist U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, 



