EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 121 



Other Fruits for the Fancy Market." Very likely "other 

 fruits" means apples. I always think the discussion, — the 

 questions and answers, — following addresses and papers are 

 ■of more value than the paper or address itself. I might 

 spend a considerable time speaking on a certain subject and 

 yet not touch on very many of the points that are of direct 

 vital interest, but when you begin to ask questions then you 

 are interested. 



Perhaps the first thing to consider is the soil, or the man 

 who handles it — for I believe there is really more in the man 

 than in the soil or anything else. I have heard that if a Con- 

 necticut Yankee was shipwrecked on a barren uninhabited 

 island, he would soon get rich selling wooden nutmegs to the 

 natives. So you see there is more in the man than in the 

 location, but if the right man has the right kind of soil it is 

 better still. We are told that our neighbors in the West grow 

 beautiful fruit. They have the virgin soil filled with humus^ 

 with all the elements of fertility in it, and employ modern 

 and advanced methods of husbandry. When I begin oper- 

 ations on a piece of land I try to restore it to that condition. 

 When I am preparing new land I drain it before I plow, put- 

 ting the tile about 90 feet apart and at a depth of three or 

 three and a half feet before the ground is cleared, if possible. 

 For cover crops we use clover, soy beans or whatever seems 

 to be the most available ; we also use rye or buckwheat and 

 top dress with stable manure largely. I might say I don't 

 know much about commercial fertilizers ; they are in the ex- 

 perimental stage in our State among the fruit growers. Our 

 grain growers are using them with profit on our rich soil. I 

 am now conducting experiments in one of my apple orchards 

 in the use of diflferent formulas of fertilizers, but as I am not 

 past the experimental stage I can say nothing of the eflfect. 

 I use mainly stable manure. 



One of the things I learned very early in my career was, 

 there was neither pleasure nor profit in working wet land or 

 poor land, and I was after both the pleasure and the profit. 



After securing this ideal condition of the soil one of the 

 next things to consider is the variety of fruit and the market. 



