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TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



acquirement of the necessaries of life. With these satisfied, we march 

 on to secure gradually the comforts, then the luxuries, and last of all 

 the refinements of the beautiful. We have conditions here, of course, 

 which do not prevail elsewhere. For eight months of the year, as a 

 rule, moisture from above does not touch us. Our irrigation ditches 

 are inadequate, and the arid appearance of ground not under cultiva- 

 tion is discouraging. Those of you from the various localities know of 

 the conditions prevailing there. Is it not true that the average ceme- 

 tery is wretchedly fenced, unlovely, apparently neglected, because of 

 the parched look that pervades it? Only once a year is the barrenness 

 clothed with the tender green of the up-springing weeds, which must be 

 plowed under, as they can not be allowed to reach maturity. 



Organization for improvement is the first essential; then the com- 

 mission, or committee, or trustees, call it by any name, must be in 

 sympathy with a plan decided upon. As a rule, each town seems to 

 have entered the woods of experience from its own particular corner, 

 finding no paths and but few blaze marks to guide it. Our dead will 

 be with us wherever Ave live, and often a spot on the outskirts, hastily 

 chosen, is the nucleus of the cemetery; and as the town widens to a 

 city in growth, the resting place of our dead is pushed farther and 

 farther from the business and residence portions, so that it becomes out 

 of sight, and naturally the farthest from the minds of all but those 

 whose interest is personal and unforgettable. 



After organization, the procuring of a water supply is the next 

 essential. Wells and ditches are utterly inadequate. We have proved 

 this on ground of an acreage suited to the cemetery of a growing town. 

 A pumping plant owned by a stock company, or by the city, or possibly 

 by individuals, with pipes conveying water to all portions and with 

 rates established by the company for its patrons, cuts the difficulty in 

 half. 



Suitable fencing, too, must be provided; the most permanent kind, 

 having iron posts cemented in the ground, and with heavy galvanized 

 wire webbing, of which there are many kinds and designs upon the 

 market. The entrances may be of a memorial character, but do let us 

 build them of a permanent character, not the flimsy wooden arch, but 

 pillars of brick cemented, or best of all of granite, which will stand and 

 remain a monument to the wisdom of the selection. 



It is absolutely necessary that on the committee should be one or 

 two members who know something of soils and fertilizers, of artistic 

 grading, of planting and pruning, of the nature and habits of trees and 

 shrubs, of the effect of time on their form, and with these individuals 

 let the rest of the committee work in sympathy. Plans must be made 

 and trees must be planted. In planting trees we might choose those 

 which develop rapidly; but by placing in their neighborhood those of 



