360 



THIRTY-FOURTH FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 



the members of the next Leg-islature are. to every member of that 

 Legislature. 



Motion seconded, and carried. 



PRESIDENT JEFFREY. We will now have the pleasure of he^ir- 

 ing from a practical orchardist. a man of large orchard affairs. "Main- 

 taining the Fertility of the Orchard.'' by Frank L. Palmer, of North 

 Pomona. 



MR. PALMER. On Wednesday, a gentleman was introduced to mc 

 at the hotel, Avho said he was particularly glad to meet me, as he noticed 

 that I was to have a paper on fertilization, which he would very much 

 like to hear, but would not be able to remain over until to-day. He said 

 that he had made investments in orange property, and was going to 

 make other investments in orange property in other parts of the State, 

 and under the circumstances avouIcI I not just tell him in a word which 

 is the best brand of fertilizer. (Laughter.) I will simply say if the 

 gentleman had Avaited over he would proliably have been very nuich 

 disappointed in my paper. 



MAINTAINING THE FERTILITY OF AN ORCHARD. 



P»Y FRANK L. PALMKK, of North Pomona. 



We have heard a good deal in recent years about wornout and unpro- 

 ductive farms. About the year 1890 these so-called "aba-ndoned farms" 

 of New England came into special prominence by reason of the fact that 

 some of the New England states issued lists of such property for sale — 

 these lands having been sold to the State for unpaid taxes. The. title 

 of the pamphlet issued by the State of ]\la.ssachusetts was this: 

 ''Descriptive List of Farms in ^lassachusetts Abandoned or Partially 

 Abandoned." Qonnecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont issued simi- 

 lar lists, and in a State report for ]\Iaine the large number of 3.398 

 such farms is mentioned. 



Unproductive farms are not confined, however, to the New England 

 states. We know, as a most serious fact, that the once rich prairies of 

 Illinois, and other states of the wheat belt, have, become .so impoverished 

 by continuous cropping that the land, is fiow yielding less than half 

 the number of bushels of wheat it produced forty years ago. ^Many 

 farmers of Illinois grew wheat upon those fertile lands year after year 

 until wheat could no longer be profitably grown, then they moved on to 

 Nebraska and the Dakotas and repeated the process, and the same class 

 of farmers are still moving- on to seek virgin soil in Manitoba. 



Such is man's wasteful method. But let us turn for a moment from 

 man's methods to nature's methods. In a state of nature do v»'e find 

 land worn out by reason of its having been taxed with a hea^w growth ? 

 The early American pioneers pushing their way toward the West., 

 cutting out forests, clearing timber lands, and converting them into 

 farms, did not find this land impoverished because it had been growing 

 and nourishing a forest. No : in nature fertility is maintained by 

 nature's own processes. "In nature those elements of fertility which. 



