No. 4.] SOIL IN FRUIT CULTURE. 85 



we do that as thoroughly as we do on top, we will have 

 perfect fruit. Our Kings are all down on the ground ; our 

 Rhode Island Greenings are on the ground, many of the 

 branches ; and yet our spraying has been so thorough that 

 we don't find a single scab on them when we pick them. 

 But they must be sprayed on the under side as Avell as the 

 upper side. You are right, — your good keeping apples 

 Avill come from the high branches ; but I believe we can 

 combine the two, so we can get a vjery large per cent of 

 very fine fruit by spraying underneath, pruning, opening 

 the trees and letting the sun shine through, and starting 

 cultivation as soon as we can. 



Adjourned at 4 p.m. 



Evening Session. 



The meeting was called to order at 8 o'clock by Secre- 

 tary Ellsworth, who introduced Mr. Augustus Pratt, the 

 second vice-president of the Board, as presiding oiBcer. 



The Chair. We have had the pleasure of listening to 

 two very interesting addresses to-day, and it gives me 

 great pleasure to inform you of the fact that one of those 

 lecturers who spoke to us was a graduate of our Agricul- 

 tural College at Amherst. It carries my mind back many 

 years, to 1869, when, with a number of other gentlemen, I 

 had the pleasure of going to those college grounds as a com- 

 mittee from the Legislature, to see whether it was proper or 

 policy for the State to grant the sum of $50,000 for the up- 

 building of that institution. In looking back to that time, 

 and thinking of the few buildings and the little there was 

 there, and then seeing the great growth that has been made 

 since, it makes me feel authorized to say to-night that we, 

 as citizens of Massachusetts, have reason to feel proud of 

 our Agricultural College. 



This morning, as I said, we listened to an able speaker, 

 who gave us a very interesting address, giving us facts from 

 successes which he had made in our own State since gradu- 

 ating from the college. To-night it is our pleasure to have 

 with us a gentleman who has gone abroad into another State 



