Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 453 
lock, or gulch than he sees in his eastern range. But the ragged- 
edged corner, with its vacant, lonesome-looking trees that we call 
orchards, are in strong contrast with the general thrift and fullness- 
apparent in most other things that go to make the sum of good 
living in this land of plenty. 
Every lover of progress and perfection in the art of horticulture 
must be pained to witness the evidences of our very imperfect knowl¬ 
edge of the wants of the fruit-tree, and the apathy of the farmers 
with respect to the condition of their orchards. Thoughts like 
these come to me always in my travels around the state, and I con¬ 
fess to a feeling of humiliation that these things are so within the 
counties where most of the thirty years of my toil and study in the 
field of horticulture have been spent, and that so little of certainty 
and permanency has been attained by the fruit-growing interests of 
that region. 
I am aware that our first notions of fruit-culture were largely 
upon a false basis, and we have had to grow out of them by the slow 
teaching of painful and costly experience. But is it not now time 
to awake from the lethargy and discouragements of the past, and 
bring up our fruit-growing interest to the status its importance in 
domestic economy demands? 
The causes which have led to this condition of our orchards are 
various, and not within the province of this paper to enumerate and 
describe in detail. I will only refer to some of the more prominent 
of them. If I were to ask the farmers present for their reasons for 
the condition of their orchards, they would answer about in the 
following order: 
CAUSES. 
1. Some of my trees were dead when received; or their vitality 
much impaired by long exposure. 
2. They started well, but succumbed to the mid-summer drouth. 
3. Were winter-killed. 
4. Were spring-killed. 
5. Destroyed by insects or vermin. 
6. Injured by farm-stock. 
7. Over-fed, or starved. 
If there be any other cause, it may be exhaustion or old age, 
which I think is about as rare as Methuselah’s nowadays. 
