144 FRUIT RANCHING. 



in the very front of their profession the world over — 

 and included also exhibitors from England, Germany, 

 and Norway. 



At this great show I had the temerity to put up 

 one special exhibit, for the " Best Plate Collection 

 of Apples Grown by any Individual," and about a 

 score of separate varieties staged five fruits of each 

 variety on a plate. In the special exhibit, despite the 

 fact that I was minus all my early varieties, having 

 sold them before making up my mind to exhibit, I was 

 placed second. With the score of separate plate ex- 

 hibits I was fortunate enough to win eleven prizes — 

 not all of them, of course, first prizes. In fact, they 

 were distributed as follows — two first prizes, four 

 second prizes, one third, two fourth, and two fifth. 

 Now, surely to win even a fifth prize at such a show, 

 and against such competitors, is a feather in the cap 

 of a beginner! This success came at the end of my 

 first twelvemonth as an actual fruit-grower, a twelve- 

 month in which (as will be abundantly evident by 

 inference from the foregoing narrative) my energies 

 had been, of necessity, not given undividedly to the 

 growing of apples. 



