riFTEHNTH ANNUAL MEETING. 145 



at all and never become members of this Society because it 

 costs a dollar. 



President Eddy : The first address this afternoon is one 

 that was unavoidably crowded out of the morning program. 

 We will now listen to Mr. S. H. Derby of Delaware, on the 

 important subject of Fertility. 



The Fertility Problem in Fruit Culture. 



By S. H. Derby, Woodside. Del. 



Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen : I don't know that 

 you need in Conecticut soil fertility in the same measure that we 

 need it in Delaware. Prehaps you know that the Delaware and 

 Maryland peninsula is alluvial wash, so that a large part of our 

 state is a light loam, running to sand. There is another thing 

 tliat makes me think that probably you don't need as much 

 fertility here in Connecticut, because I understand that Mr. 

 Hale advertises to sell "water" in his fruit, with just a little 

 coloring matter in it. Rut I recognize that the fertility problem 

 generally is before every farmer of the eastern part of the 

 United States, and how long it will be before the zvesfern 

 people have exhausted what seemed to be an inexhaustible 

 store of fertility, I have no means of telling. In Delaware we 

 find soil that has been skinned thin, to begin with — one that 

 has been skinned by the slaves or worked by the slaves, and 

 all products of the soil sold off. So that those who went 

 from the North into Delaware and began to farm, found 

 they had an exhausted soil; they found a beautiful climate, 

 they had plentiful rainfalls, but they had no store of soil fer- 

 tility to fall back upon. We began years ago by trying rye and 

 buckwheat, and some other things to turn down. When the 

 Experiment Stations of the United States came into existence. 

 Delaware had its experiment station, and they began in Del- 

 aware, as they did elsewhere, to make experiments to see what 

 could be done to restore the fertility of the soil. 



Many cover crops, chiefly the legumes, have been tried in 

 Delaware, but crimson clover and cowpeas are mostly used. 

 Crimson clover gives the quickest results, and all tilings con- 



