ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 65 



IMost any man who will give the care and attention to his 

 orchard, and spray as often as he has done, is bound to get 

 tine-looking apples. That is one great secret of it. A man 

 with his faith in the apple tree would be a success on almost 

 any line. But on top of all that he let the cat right out of the 

 bag when he said that right alongside of these trees, and he 

 says he has got trees a hundred years old that have borne fruit ; 

 and that is where he let the whole thing out. 



It shows that there is some particular virtue in Hitchings' 

 land. There is no doubt but what he has got an exceptionally 

 good piece of land, and it would grow apples if the sod was 

 up to the top of the trees. That is plain enough. It is plain 

 enough that God Almighty made that particular piece of land 

 to raise apples on and Hitchings simply landed on that particu- 

 lar spot and has taken advantage of it. 



He says it is all due to sod culture. That sod culture theory 

 of his is all nonsense from start to finish. Your fathers and 

 grandfathers tried it here in Connecticut, and for 200 years, and 

 made a miserable failure of it. Most of them mowed their grass 

 and left it there. But some of them carried it to their barns 

 and fed it. 



Dr. Fisher up in Pittsfield, Mass., tried that sod plan and he 

 kept at it until he was almost old enough to die. Then he finally 

 learned better and he put his orchards into rational culture and 

 then he got better apples and more of them. 



I can cite a host of instances. Mr. ^Morrill, the Michigan 

 peach grower, eleven years ago was working as a laborer for 

 other people wdien he started his little orchard, and to-day he 

 is worth more than one hundred thousand dollars. He has made 

 it because he has everlastingly been turning the soil. 



Mr. Hitchings : Let's see about that. Friend Hale came 

 up to our meeting in Syracuse and he told us about growing 

 fruit and cultivating, and before he got through he said the 

 finest apples that he saw anywhere in the country were grown 

 up in ]\Iaine where they never cultivated ; where the soil was 

 all held down so that they couldn't cultivate it. It was mulched 

 with rocks and sod. (Laughter.) 



?iIr. Loomis: If mv friend Hale will come over and see us 

 I will show him two orchards in which I know that the grass 

 has been mowed, and the trees nmlched in verv nuich the same 



