FOURTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 99 



of owners. Our winter fruit is all put immediately in cel- 

 lars. About half our growers ship direct to England them- 

 selves. The other half sell to speculators, who store in large 

 frost-proof warehouses along line of railway. In a distance 

 of seventy miles of railroad there are thirty such warehouses, 

 holding from ten to fifteen thousand barrels each. These 

 are built and owned mostly by speculators and English com- 

 mission men. Occasionally a company of farmers build one 

 and pack the fruit on the cooperative or company plan. The 

 low dray wagon is used almost exclusively among the best 

 fruit men. 



My Own Methods. 

 In my own business I have incorporated some ideas that 

 I am practically alone in carrying out. It occurs to me that 

 in horticulture, as in theology, some things that were regarded 

 a few years ago as heterodox are becoming orthodox. The 

 main idea is that of getting large returns as soon as possible. 

 I am getting on toward the "seer and yellow leaf" period 

 and would like to get some fun and money out of the business 

 before my hair is completely gray. I am in for fruit, and to 

 those who are situated best for mixed farming my points 

 will have less interest. My plantings are on the intensive 

 system. I have planted the best commercial varieties which 

 do not usually give remunerative crop till fifteen years two 

 rods apart and fill in between these with early bearing apples, 

 plum or cherry to the nunjber of three hundred and twenty 

 or five hundred to the acre. My experience so far shows 

 that I can get earlier returns, and that there is economy in 

 fertilizing, thinning of fruit, picking, cultivation and spray- 

 ing. These fillers are all branched low, from eighteen to 

 twenty-four inches from the ground, in order to obtain a large 

 surface as soon as possible. When desirable, heading in of 

 trees is thoroughly attended to. The Burbank plum trees 

 need this from the start to make them compact and sym- 

 metrical. The tops of no two trees are allowed to interfere. 

 For apple fillers I prefer the Wagener, as it will bear the 

 third year and regularly thereafter. It is very compact, car- 

 ries its fruit evenly and thickly, is excellent in quality, and 



