Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 417 



Mr. A. S. Fuller read from the English Floral World a statement 

 made over 100 years ago that a certain apple, Tvhicli is still doing 

 well, was dying out, and that apple trees, like folks, grow old and 

 die. 



Mi\ George Geddes. — The county of Onondaga was once famed 

 for its apples. But when the first growth died or grew old there was 

 an interval when we complained of scanty apple crops. Kow we 

 have a goodly number of j'oung orchards, and there is no complaint 

 about fruit, though the trees are not such generous bearers as those 

 first planted. 



Dr. J. Y. C. Smith. — I think the difference may be found in the 

 habits of people. We do not work as the former generation did. 

 We do not dig about our trees as tha,t fig-grower in Palestine did. 

 We are more slack. ^ 



A visitor. — That does not account entirely for the difference. 

 When I was a boy the east wind blew in May just as it does now, 

 and men were slack about their orchards just as they are now, yet 

 we had apples a plenty and quantities of cider. Some men grew rich 

 of making cider brandy, and others grew poor a drinking of it. 



Dr. Isaac P. Trimble. — We might as well talk about the wheat dying 

 out or the corn dying out, because some farmers make poor crops for 

 want of manure. Cultivate orchards as you do tobacco and you will 

 have apples. 



Mr. S. Edwards Todd. — Dr. Smith has driven a nail or two in this 

 discussion which I desire to clinch. In my walks with many people 

 in the country, I am often met with this remark : " I wish you could 

 tell me what ails my fruit trees." I met with several farmers on 

 Long Island and in Xew Jersey who thought their peach trees had 

 the 3"ellows. I assured them the borers were the sole cause of that 

 unthrifty appearance. And I have brought to the club a stump of a 

 small peach tree, from which I cut out with my own knife eight 

 borers. You see the tree is completely girdled by the borers ; and 

 there are more borers in the wood. Thousands of fine trees are des- 

 troyed by the borers, when the failure of the trees is attributed to 

 the east wind, or something else, which never had an existence. 

 When I was a boy my father employed a pruner to go into his large 

 orchard and prune every tree with the axe ; and since the orchard 

 endured that unexampled and wanton slashing the fruit has been 

 failing- Where those large limbs were cut off, the trees began to 



[Ikst.] 27 



