Excerpt from Forty-Second Annual Report of the Secretary of the State Horticultural Society of Michigan for the Year 1912 The year That has gone by has been one where many of us have met our "Waterloo" and I feel sometimes as though in many respects we have been a failure in another way. Personally I feel that way, and especially as by my advice a good many in years past have been induced to go into the apple business and today they are plying me with questions and advice as to how they can get out of the orchard business what they were to believe was in it but which they have been unable to secure. This past year they have raised their apples; they have got fruit but there are no buyers in the field, and they do not know what to do with their products. This is not the condition that is peculiar to our own state alone, it is general. Orchardists of other states have met with the same difficult I cannot believe that the comparatively few hundreds of people who have been induced to go into this business have been able to raise so much fruit that there is such an enormous over-production as to cause the present low price. Especially do I think so when there are right here in our own country ninety-five million of people to eat it for nine months of the year. The whole trouble I believe is that there is something wrong in the marketing. If we can do anything to help that end of the problem it is the thing we must do. We must try to get at the bottom of this matter and inaugurate some plans or methods by which our fruits can be marketed and we receive something like a price commensurate with the costs of production. This will probably all come out later in the discussion and now without any further words go on and take up the first thing on the program. Before we take up the regular program, the first topic for consideration is: "How Best to Feed the Apple Orchard," by Mr. Luther E. Hall, of Ionia, who will address you. How Best To Feed The Apple Orchard. Luther E. Hall, Ionia. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen - When your Secretary asked me to prepare something on this topic, he intimated that he would like to have it very brief and to the point. Now the topic of feeding the apple orchard may be made very brief, and I will try to be brief, but I hope I may be able to contribute a few hints that may help in feeding the apple orchard so as to get it to a condition of productiveness. In the first place I want to describe the conditions under which we are working, and then you will better understand our methods. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.