52 STATE POMOLOQICAL SOCIETY. 



which the eating- of fruit affords, and the health of the people ias 

 suffering in consequence. 



Now it seems to me that this Society has some things to do, and 

 that the matter of promoting extensive cultivation of the apple as 

 a business, as a distinct and specific business, and a separate 

 branch of farming, is one of the things which we have to do. I 

 am aware when we talk of that as a separate branch, that a difiS- 

 culty arises as to the fertilizers to be used. And I will say in 

 regard to that matter — for I am not trying to deliver an essay upon 

 that subject, — I want to renew a remark which I made last year, 

 namely : that my experience (which has been continued, through 

 the past season), with the Cumberland Superphosphate of lime, 

 has afforded me a great deal of satisfaction, and I believe that that 

 may be made one of the profitable means by which agriculture can 

 be carried on to a very large extent, and with success. 



A difficulty which meets us when we talk of such an orchard as 

 that of Pell's, or the orchard of the gentleman at Franklin, in 

 Illinois, where he has 18,000 trees, and I was told by one of the 

 officers of the Pomological Society of Illinois, that he made his 

 orchard produce, in fruit and cider and vinegar, more than $50,000 

 a year, — when we talk of orchards of that extent, the difficulty of 

 the want of sufficient dressing meets us. I have tried this Cum- 

 berland Superphosphate of lime for those uses, though not on a 

 large scale, because my operations are small. I don't wish to be 

 understood as advocating that particular kind any further than 

 that experience with that kind has demonstrated its utility. There 

 may be others as good. 



No.w I want to refer again, as I did last year, to the practice of 

 feeding sheep and swine in the oi'chard. In the essay which I had 

 the honor to submit last year, I think the facts demonstrated that 

 after making liberal allowance, an orchard will yield $100.00 per 

 acre, annually. I believe it is very profitable to feed corn or small 

 grains to sheep and swine in the orchard, and if I could carry out 

 the experiment, I would select a tract of land of fifty or one hun- 

 dred acres, more or less, where I could so arrange matters as to 

 have a stream of running water, and proper slopes, and a soil 

 sufficiently underdrained by nature and of a proper texture, where 

 the plough could run deep ; and the plough having run deep, I 

 would plant the apple trees, selecting, according to the best 

 knowledge we now have of that matter, the long-keeping varieties 

 adapted for shipment ; and one of the means for manuring which 



