16 CONFERENCE OF GOVERNORS. 



seen the remains of quite large orchards, in which the trees now stand- 

 ing are from forty to eighty years- old. Nothing is done with them, 

 however, except that in some cases the fruit is sometimes picked and 

 made into eider, or fed to cattle. Occasionally we see one of these 

 orchards in which the farmer is doing something toward caring for it, 

 and some marketable fruit is secured. The San Jose scale has also 

 been a tremendous factor in destroying orchard trees and reducing 

 interest in fruit growing. Its effect has, of course, been more apparent 

 m places where orchards have been set out within the last ten or fifteen 

 years. In such places both the young trees and the old ones have been 

 entirely destroyed by the insect. 



On the whole, fruit growing, it seems to me, is still on the decline 

 in perhaps the larger part of the State. In some places it may be 

 considered to be at a standstill, and in a few others there are some 

 progressive growers who are beginning to conduct their orchards ac- 

 cording to modern methods. I have in mind at the present moment at 

 least half a dozen men in the State who are making a good success of 

 fruit growing under conditions which are no better than those which 

 surround places where orchards are dying out. The secret lies in 

 cultivation, fertilization, careful pruning, and, most important of all, 

 in a thorough and continuous battle against the San Jose scale, codling 

 moth and plant diseases. 



I thoroughly believe that there is a good prospect for orchard grow- 

 ing in the western and northern parts of the State, 1.5 or 20 miles back 

 from the ocean and the Narragansett Bay. There are people in the 

 State who have faith in the growing of apples even on the more level 

 land near the coast. A Providence physician has set out an orchard 

 of 80 or more acres within 3 miles of the college, on perfectly flat and 

 level land. The soil is not very good, and the trees have not so far 

 made a very good growth; but, while many think that the prospects 

 for success are not the very best, he still persists in setting out more 

 trees and in his belief that the venture will eventually pay. 



One man in the north-central part of the State during the last two 

 years has cleared perhaps from $2,000 to $4,000 annually from a 

 40-acre apple orchard, with trees varying from ten to forty years. 

 Two brothers a little to the northwest of the man just mentioned had 

 3,000 baskets of peaches this year from about 10 acres of peach or- 

 chard, in addition to a fair crop of apples from 15 to 20 acres of apple 

 orchard. A few similar, though not quite so prominent, instances 

 could be mentioned. 



The Problem in New Exglaxd. 

 This is divided into two parts: first, the utilization of thou- 

 sands of acres of land in each of the Few England States; and 

 second, the renovation of existing orchards. This land is now 



