^6 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



ing amount of dressing on them. It sometimes happens, I 

 know, that an orchard that has been neglected for many years 

 will suddenly turn about and produce a crop of very handsome 

 apples. But that is an exception; it is not the rule. If we are 

 going to expect to get good crops year after year for a long 

 series of years, we have got to feed the trees, and we have got 

 to keep the ground thoroughly and heavily dressed. I don't 

 think we can put on too much dressing. 



Now I am going to be just a little bit presumptuous, and 

 although I have admitted what is perfectly true that I don't 

 know very much about the subject, I am going to give my own 

 experience in contradiction to something that was said this 

 morning about the destruction of trees this last winter. In our 

 experience the trees that were lost were Baldwins. I think 

 every single Baldwin tree on the place was taken out. Most of 

 the Baldwins we had were in an orchard by themselves, but 

 there were a few trees scattered here and there through the other 

 orchards. So far as I know, last winter went over my orchards 

 and if it found a Baldwin tree over in that corner it killed it, 

 if it found another one over here in this cofner it killed it, and 

 if it found one in another place it killed that. But as a rule it 

 did not touch my Bellflowers, which have been the trees that we 

 have cultivated most intensely and which we have pressed the 

 hardest. My Bellflowers for a good many years have been 

 pressed as hard as we knew how to press them. We have culti- 

 vated, pruned heavily, manured, forced them as hard as we knew 

 how. My Bellflowers were not damaged as a rule. The prin- 

 cipal damage to my Bellflowers was to the trees I was speaking 

 of a few minutes ago, the trees which were mishandled when 

 they were first set out — it must have been thirty-five years ago 

 now — those trees were mishandled when they were first set out 

 and never were healthy and vigorous trees, and a good many of 

 them were killed this last year. My experience has been that 

 last winter was disastrous to the worst trees. My Baldwins 

 were almost all old trees that had been hurt some years ago when 

 there was a general injury to Baldwin trees, and they had never 

 really recovered. We hadn't forced them as we had the Bell- 

 flowers. The Bellflowers we had, as I say, forced the best we 

 knew how, and as a whole tliere was very little damage among 

 the Bellflowers. It destroyed my crop. I got almost the 



