328 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
growing crops, and that neglect or abuse tell their sad story as 
in the growth of any .other product of the farm. Nothing will 
repay care and cultivation better than the orchard; nothing 
will suffer more by neglect. It is better not to plant at all 
than to set trees in sod or small grain. Every orchard should 
be cultivated at least five years with some crop that requires 
hoeing; after that it is better to give the ground up to the trees 
alone, keeping down grass and weeds by shallow plowing and 
dragging. Many, however, seem to think that unless they can 
get a full crop of some farm product among the trees, so much 
of their land as is occupied by the orchard has gone to waste. 
When we go to work to raise fruit as we do any other farm 
crop we shall hear less whining about the climate, and get as 
certain returns of profit as from any other agricultural product. 
In looking back over a period of twenty years and compar¬ 
ing our present attainments in fruit culture with what they 
were twenty years ago, we find that the hopes of the most ar¬ 
dent horticulturist have been more than realized. There is 
every encouragement for continued effort, in the hope that as 
we surround our homes with fruits, flowers and shade trees, 
we may in a measure find the Eden that was lost, and attain 
to something of the happiness and purity of man in his pri¬ 
meval state. 
