ment, that in the community in which you live some of your neighbors die, and sometimes you cannot tell why they have died, at other times the cause of their death is very plain, and it is the same law that governs both the individual and the orchard, I think.

There are a good many other things in connection with the home orchard. The home orchard will not get spraying; ninetynine out of every one hundred home orchards, in Wisconsin we will say, are never sprayed. Now, if you are going to educate the people of Wisconsin to the point of having home orchards, you have got to teach them to spray, and we have some gentlemen here who have been at that business this year, I am glad to say, giving demonstrations and working along that line, and I think that ought to be spread all over the state and that lesson ought to be thoroughly given.

In regard to the pruning question, every man has a way of pruning. Of course there are certain general principles in regard to pruning that are established, but when you come to the actual pruning, there are a great many people that have their own notions I have a orchard that I have never pruned, and I have less apples on them, and I am going to put a tree butcher in and clean them out bye-and-bye, and I hope to get better fruit, and maybe as much as I have had heretofore, but I believe judicious pruning is a good thing.

A Member: Would you plow an orchard that has been in blue grass sod now, or wait till spring?

Dr. Loope: Not now, wait until spring.

Mr. Hager: I do not agree with the doctor on the grass part and I do not want this society to go on record in favor of grass orchard, because if you do, the tendency is that they will quote this society as saying that grass is all right, and they will seed them down about the second year.

Mr. Periam: As to the question of plowing an orchard, it is self-evident that it would be ruinous to any orchard to plow it just as the orchard is ready to go to rest for the winter, because it generates a second growth.

Mr. Palmer: I practice plowing last thing in the fall, plow as shallow as I can; I never had bad results, and I think I have good results as far as curculio is concerned.

Dr. Loope: Do you have any blue-grass sod?

Mr. Palmer: I do not let any blue grass get in at all.

PEARS FOR WISCONSIN.

GEO. J. KELLOGG.

In 1854 I did not know much about Wisconsin as a fruit state; who did? I had helped my father graft in a little seedling apple nursery in 1840, two and one-half miles north of Kenosha, and had helped harvest nice, large, rare, ripe peaches on his farm. After my return from California in 1853 I bought seedling peaches eight miles west of Racine at $1.00 per bushel. That same year I bought 40 acres on the prairie two miles south of Janesville on which I expected to raise an abundance of fruit; my hopes I think were based on the fact that there were three dead peach trees on the place.

In 1854 I bought 100 apple trees of Colby & Willey grown only one mile from me; 100 apple trees grown by F. K. Phoenix, Delavan, Wis; and 100 apple trees grown by J. Bell, of Springfield, Wis. These were planted 40 by 40 feet covering about 12 acres. I commenced planting every other row pears and plums, making the orchard 40 by 20. Of the apples why not plant castern varieties, we are on a line west of New York. Who at that time knew any better? Of pears I planted dwarfs and standards any variety I could buy; I had the encouragement of my brother-in-law Dr. Ozanne who had a successful pear orchard seven miles west of Racine. Of plums they were all of European varieties.. The Americans had not come from the woods at that time.

The winters of 1853 and 1854 gave us our first severe Horticultural lesson. My zeal for pears continued and I planted two trees for every one that died; this is a good rule if you have the right soil and good common sense. I did get in ten years a small basket of Louise bon de Jersey, nice pears, from a dwarf. About this time I stated at our Horticultural meetings that pears grown cutside the influence of Lake Michigan, in Wisconsin cost $10.00 each. I kept on planting pears in spite of the winters of 1853-4; '62-3; '74-5; and '82-3. During these years I had known Dr. Robinson and F. W. Loudon to grow pears quite successfully on the high ground west of Janesville where the Janesville grape, the Jessie strawberry and the Loudon raspberry had their birthplace; and I had seen in the city of Janesville a half dead Flem

ish Beauty bear two bushels of nice pears. I had succeeded in growing a row of seedling pears on a high gravel hill that bore some poor fruit and gave quite a success to top grafted Kieffer. I had reduced the cost of pears to $5.00 each in this 45 years of unsuccessful efforts.

After the winter of 1898-9 when the dry freeze killed for me 75,000 apple trees, 2,000 roses, three acres of vineyard and all plum and pear stock I quit growing pears on the prairie. There is one little monument of my pear folly still standing; a Flemish Beauty 30 years old standing south of the carriage house and nearly covered up by an Austrian pine, that does bear a few scrawny, cracked pears.

In 1899 I came to Lake Mills planted Flemish Beauty, B de Anjo, Bartlett, Clapps Favorite and Kieffer; standards on clay soil, about 20 feet above and near Rock Lake, which is 3 miles by 2 including the mill pond. These all died but Bartlett and Kieffer. Bartlett has borne three full crops and no blight; Kieffer has also had to be propped up and then broke down with fruit. The other trees blighted and winter killed before fruiting. John Schultz on the N. W. side of this lake had a successful pear orchard of a dozen varieties and grew bushels and bushels of nice pears for the market.

I had a fearful attack of "pear fever" eight years ago while delegate to Michigan Winter Meeting, as a result I bought a dozen Dwarfs, the Duch. de Angouleme bore one pear that weighed 19 ounces and died. Clapps Favorite, Sheldon, Bartlett, Louise bon de Jersey, and Flemish beauty all died before fruitage. Koonce still lives but no fruit. C. des Nantes has become a half standard and has borne three crops and is now loaded to breaking; this is a very large pear of excellent quality, which I have repeatedly exhibited at the state fair. This year Bordeau, which looks in tree and leaf almost identical with C. des Nantes, is carrying its first crop and is supported on all sides for fear of breaking; this is a pear about the size and shape of the Bartlett.

As vacancies occur in the pear row I set in Kieffer trees to top graft and now have eight Kieffer carrying the following twentyone varieties, C. des Nantes, Worden, Seckel, Peffers No. 4, No. 5, and Russian Seedling; Rhiels Best; Starratt, of Phil Cheek; B. Clariague; Flemish Beauty; Bartlett; D. de Angouleme; Pres. Druard; Lincoln; Marguerite; L. bon de Jersey; Mt. Vernon and

Burkett; Bordeau; Wilder; Vt. Beauty; and Peffers Seedling No. 6; five varieties in fruit this year, Bartlett; Bordeau; C. des Nantes, Kieffer and Clapp Favorite. Most of the Kieffer are entirely worked over and what surprises me is I have had no blight for five years. One Kieffer is growing twelve kinds that promise fruit next year. I shall have about two bushels of No. 1 pears this year and can now grow pears at one cent each.

I attribute my success to high clay soil, contiguous to the lake, careful cultivation, wrapping the trees in winter with ropes and cat-tail flags or corn stalks, thorough spraying and top grafting on Kieffer. With fifty-five years experience growing pears in Wisconsin I would advise setting on high clay soil with free circulation of air avoiding any fertilizers, planting Kieffer standard to use as a stock to top graft, plant also C. des Nantes, Bordeau, Flemish Beauty and Bartlett, preferably dwarfs; careful cultivation, wrap in winter; thorough spraying and a general pinching back of vigorous shoots.

Mr. President I have thus given my failures and sucesses; believing it will benefit more than any theory I might advance. My 74 years in Wisconsin and 55 years in the nursery business ought to be worth something.

Mr. Hager: I would like to ask if Mr. Kellogg would advocate setting pears in the so-called home orchard for the average farmer?

Mr. Kellogg: If you are on clay soil, try it. Do not spend your last dollar on it. I would not plant on prairie soil unless I wanted to fool away my money; I did that for forty years and got no returns.

Mr. Periam: Mr. Kellogg uses the word "clay," now, what kind of clay was that, whitish or yellow?

Mr. Kellogg: Yellow clay; alluvial clay.

Mr. Periam: That solves the question; it is not blue clay. Pears have no business in blue clay; still the white clay north of Chicago is very fertile in pear culture; they raise a great many in Waukegan, but it is the quality of the clay soil that has helped you out. I may as well say that my friend Kellogg's experience. was more serious than that of a Bostonian in relation to pears. Mr. Kellogg says it cost him five dollars apiece, now he has reduced the price very considerably. This Bostonian, they were

making fun of him for growing pears; he said, "Why, gentlemen, pears do not cost me much; I can raise them for about 75 cents or a dollar apiece. I do not think I ever raised pears

that cost me less than five dollars.

Mr. Kellogg: I got them this year so that they did not cost me a cent apiece.

CHERRIES AND PLUMS.

By D. E. BINGHAM, Sturgeon Bay.

I have no paper prepared on cherries and plums.

In regard to cherries; about fourteen years ago, when Prof. Goff and Mr. Hatch went to Door county they figured that the European plum business would be a wonderful success, taking the general lay of the land and the nearness to the water into consideration, they thought that plum culture there would be as sure a thing as they could enter into, and planted out about sixteen acres of European plums, with perhaps two or three varieties of the natives and as many of the Japanese varieties. Those trees did very well for a number of years, but the shothole fungus, which attacks the foliage of European plums, and of course of the Japs and of the cherry, attacked these, and being in the nursery, we did not have a chance to spray them, and of course that injured the trees somewhat. Following a hard winter, nearly all of the European varieties were dead, the result, ro doubt, of the defoliation the previous summer. The Japanese varieties still stood that test, the foliage did not fall as much as on the others, the shot-hole fungus seemed to attack the foliage on the Jap varieties earlier in the season, and they seemed to renew and go on with the later foliage, which was good and did not show as much injury, and consequently lived through the winter. That is about fourteen years ago. The Japs are still living, the Europeans are practically cleaned out, with the exception of perhaps two or three hundred trees on a lower, sandy soil.

This year and last year also the winters were very mild, mild enough so that on the Jap varieties the fruit buds lived through the winter and we had a good crop last year and this year of the Burbank. Europeans have the disadvantage of being a little