66 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



manner as Mr. Hitchings has described, for forty years, and 

 one of these orchards is the best orchard I know of in Tolland 

 County. 



Prof. Powell: I just want to point out the danger of draw- 

 ing a general conclusion from a single example like the one 

 which has been cited here by Mr. Hitchings. I can take you 

 down almost anywhere in this country and show you plenty of 

 orchards in cultivation which have been changed from sod cul- 

 ture, and where the growers are getting from 50 to 75 per cent, 

 more fruit than they ever got from the other practice. On the 

 other hand, I can take you up in Maine and show you orchards 

 in sod that are bearing the finest types of fruit. 



Down in the mountains of West Virginia, where they cannot 

 cultivate, I have seen some of the finest colored fruit ever 

 grown, and yet, you go down in our part of the country, through 

 Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, and I venture the assertion 

 that you will travel many a day before you will find a single 

 orchard in sod that is giving anything like fair returns. I want 

 to say that there is a great danger in this. I gave you my 

 ideas. I believe in sod culture under some conditions, but I 

 want to point out to you the great danger of taking a single 

 example, whether it be from a man like Mr. Hitchings or from 

 any other man, and trying to draw a general conclusion from 

 their success. You must work this thing out for yourselves. 

 Nobody can work it out for you. There is not an experiment 

 station in the country that can work out your salvation. You 

 must do as Mr. Hitchings has done, — work it out for yourselves. 

 There is not a successful grower in the country but what will 

 tell you that after all success in a large measure depends upon 

 the man. I will venture the assertion that a dozen men might 

 go and locate right next to Mr. Hitchings and attempt to grow 

 an orchard as he has done and make it a failure because they are 

 not Hitchings. A man might locate right by the side of Mr. 

 Morrill and even cultivate more times than he does, and still 

 not have his success because he was not Morrill. Nobody can 

 work out a man's own system so well as the man himself. And 

 there is where the value of a discussion of this kind comes in. 

 It is to point out some of the general principles of orcharding, 

 but you must l)e very careful how you attempt to make these 

 principles applicable to your conditions. Of course there are 



