16 
AMERICAN POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
great orchards of Noble, of Germantown, who was our leading apple grower 
and a great authority on apples, have all passed away, and I do not feel that 
I could now give the list. 
CULTURE. 
BY J. H. HALE, SOUTH GLASTONBURY, CONNECTICUT. 
Mr. Hale, upon the invitation of the chair, spoke as follows upon the subject 
“Culture.” 
Mr. President and Gentlemen— When the Secretary of this Society asked 
me to talk to you, I think I left it with him to say what I was to talk about, 
and he hit upon one subject’ with which I am not very conversant, if we are 
to take “Culture”’ in its broadest sense, as applied to men and women as 
well as to seeds, plants and trees* However, though lacking the refinements 
of culture personally, I am a believer in the necessity of culture, whether it 
be among human beings or in the soil and the plants that grow therein. One 
fact with which I have been impressed, in my observations, (though perhaps 
I may have been looking from the selfish or commercial side of fruit culture) 
has been this, that with the growth of culture and refinement among the peo- 
ple everywhere there has come a greater and ever increasing demand for and 
appreciation of, fine fruit as a substitute for the coarser food products. As 
men and women become more refined they are more appreciative of fine 'fruits 
and flowers, and they become better customers of the commercial horticultur- 
ist. Perhaps Mr. Taylor, our Secretary, hinted at this fact last night, when he 
asked me at the conference at Wissahickon Inn to say a word in relation to 
the effect of exhibitions of fine fruit. 
W e find that the grower of high grade fruit for the great markets looks to 
Boston as one of the best markets in America for choice fruit; and this is 
true of the grower in the central section of the country as well as in the 
South and West and on the Pacific coast. There, in Bo-ston, the work of the 
Massachusetts Horticultural Society and its weekly exhibitions of fine fruit, 
for the last fifty years, have educated the people to an appreciation of variety 
and quality beyond that which is to be found in any other city of the Union. 
It is for this reason that Boston is the best market for fine fruit; and I repeat 
that wherever a knowledge and appreciation of good fruit are disseminated 
among the people the commercial horticulturist will find there his best mar- 
ket; and proportionally as this knowledge and appreciation are developed 
will the demand for our fruits and flowers increase. It seems to me that the 
wonderful increase of culture and refinement among the people of America 
is of itself a positive evidence to us horticulturists, that the increased 
demand for all our fine fruits will relatively far exceed that which might be 
expected from the increase of population and of wealth and that the tiller 
of the soil will find in fruit culture abundant compensation for his labors 
besides the pleasure he may find in such work. 
One prerequisite to fruit culture is a more frequent stirring of the soil. 
We hear a great deal of talk about the worn out soil in many sections of our 
country, about the necessity for the use of plant food and of supplying the 
land with food necessary to the proper development of trees and plants and 
bringing out the bright colors; but we little realize the wonderful possibilities 
to follow from bringing out what is already in the soil by stirring it and 
bringing new particles of soil together. We see everywhere orchards and 
