SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 



99 



IS niy first visit to your State, and being- unfamiliar with 

 your local conditions in regard to fruit growing and spray- 

 ing, it will be necessary for me to confine myself to the 

 industry in Western New York, particularly the Niagara 

 Frontier, and my own personal experience in the growing 

 of fruit. 



The fruit district with us is comparatively level, con- 

 sisting generally of a dark surface soil and clay subsoil, 

 with patches here and there, particularly along the rivei 

 and lake, of sand and gravelly soil well adapted to peaches, 

 and on which the great bulk of the peaches of Niagara 

 <'ounty are grown. 



]\Iy father commenced planting commercial orchards 

 about thirty years ago, and we have continued to plant 

 and replant ever since, until now we have upwards of four 

 hundred acres under cultivation, consisting of apples, 

 pears, quinces, plums, prunes, peaches and cherries. 

 Beginning with the cherry we have almost a continuous 

 gathering of fruits until the last of the apples are har- 

 vested. 



The eighty acres of apples consist mostly of Baldwins 

 and Greenings, planted about thirty years ago. The 

 ■Quince orchard of about 1,200 trees was planted about the 

 same time. They have borne almost yearly crops since 

 six years old. The scale has never bothered them suffi- 

 ciently to require spraying for it, though we find it nec- 

 essary to apply the Bordeaux ^Mixture, at least three times 

 to prevent the black spot on leaf and fruit. We consider 

 the Quince, the Niagara Plum, and the Sour Cherry prac- 

 tically immune from the scale, for during the eight years 

 that the scale has been with us, we have never had to 

 treat any of these varieties, even when surrounded by 

 other infested fruit trees. 



We have about 10.000 pear trees, growing ; princi- 

 pally Bartlett, Keiffer and Duchess, of various ages, and 

 often gather upwards of three thousand barrels of fruit, 

 wdiich is readily disposed of. Before the advent of cold 

 :storage the ordinary life of the Bartlett was about a week 



