During the two years two Bulletins of the regular monthly series of the Department were from this Division, as follows: June, 1909, "Orchard Spraying-Orchard Protection Work." Also three of the series of Entomological Circulars have been issued: No. 26-Remedies for San Jose Scale. No. 27-Regulations Regarding Cotton Boll-weevil. COLLECTIONS. The work of accumulating as complete a collection as possible of all insects known to exist in the State has been continued, and our collections are growing larger year by year. Our cabinets now contain many thousands of specimens, and our manuscript lists show over 3,000 species already known in the State. Respectfully submitted, FRANKLIN SHERMAN, JR., Entomologist. BIENNIAL REPORT OF HORTICULTURIST. November 30, 1910. MAJ. W. A. GRAHAM, Commissioner of Agriculture. SIR-In compliance with your request I hereby submit the report of the Division of Horticulture for the years 1909 and 1910. The activities of this Division are directed towards the development of the horticultural resources of the State. COMMERCIAL APPLE DEVELOPMENT. It is just four years ago at this time that I took up the work of this Division and began the development of the State's horticultural resources. From my observations and experience in apple growing in different parts of the country, I believed that the mountain regions of Western Carolina had great possibilities for commercial apple growing, probably better than any in the East, and as good as the favored sections of the Pacific coast. In spite of these great natural advantages I found that there was little or no trade in home-grown apples, but by far the largest proportion of them was used for cider and brandy making. The cities in our own State were supplied with apples from Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts. Our own home commission merchants informed me that though of better color than Northern fruit they would not buy Carolina apples because the trees were unsprayed and the fruit was always gnarly, wormy and so affected with scab and rot that they could not keep or sell it profitably. I felt, therefore, that it was my duty to let every fruit grower in North Carolina see a spray pump and show him how to use it, and show him also how to properly prune and care for his trees. In order to set this work be fore our people in the most practical form I planned and conducted a series of orchard demonstration meetings, the first I believe ever held in this State. In boots and overalls I went right into the orchards and handled the tools myself, and showed in detail how practical orchard work should be done. These meetings were small at first, but the farmers soon learned that the State Horticulturist did not believe in merely being an office functionary, but knew orchard work and could show how to do it. This work grew in popularity from the start. Next year there were several requests for orchard meetings. Last year there were more calls for meetings than could be satisfied, and this season, three months ahead of the time for demonstration work, I have on file more requests than we can conveniently take care of, some of which have been filed a year in advance. This gives some idea of the success of the methods put in operation four years ago. To further place before our people the opportunities for commercial orchard work in Western Carolina, I published an Apple Bulletin, describing in detail the methods of setting out orchards and the care necessary for their best production. There has been a very wide demand for this Bulletin, and copies of it have been sent to every State in the Union and to Canada. The demand for it still keeps up, and copies are sent out from my office every day. Following this Bulletin two later Bulletins have been published on Pruning and Tree Planting. These publications tended greatly to stimulate the industry, and it was found necessary to engage an assistant to keep up with the magnitude of the work. In January, 1908, Mr. S. B. Shaw was appointed to assist in this work. His zealous and energetic help has ever since aided very greatly in the prosecution of the work. At the very beginning of my horticultural work in this State I found that there was urgent need for better methods of harvesting and marketing our fruit. The common method of handling apples was to shake or knock them from the trees, dump them into a wagon bed, cover with hay or shucks and haul them over a rough road to market. Under such treatment it was little wonder that our farmers found there was "very little in apple growing anyway." Some of the more careful growers shipped. their fine apples in crates similar to that used for cabbages. This package exposed the fruit to every hungry train crew that handled them in transit, and when the fruit arrived in market it was invariably in a slack, bruised and unsightly condition. Such packages placed our growers at very great disadvantage in competition with barreled fruit from the North and the handsome box-packed fruit from the West. In order to teach our growers the proper packing and marketing of apples I fitted up a traveling outfit and carried it through all the apple producing counties of the State. Demonstrations were given in the orchards where the spraying tests had been made in the spring, and the growers were shown in a practical manner just how to put up their fruit for the best markets. The success of this work has been phenomenal. The following year, at my direction, carefully packed barreled apples appeared for the first time at the State and County Fairs. This present season there was on exhibit at our State Fair the handsomest array of fruit in commercial packages ever seen in this State. As an evidence of the high quality of these packs one was taken in our exhibit to the National Horticultural Congress, and there won first premium as the best packed barrel of apples in the United States. As a result of our packing work Stategrown apples in first-class packages are now on sale in all our large cities, and are driving the foreign fruit from the market. One commission man here in Raleigh handled this season hundreds of barrels of State-grown apples, and prefers them because they are now superior in quality to fruit from other States. In order to successfully compete with Western grown fruit we have shown our best growers how to put up the fancy diagonal and offset tier packs so much in demand in the fancy fruit trade. By the use of these special packs a few of our growers have been able to get higher prices in Asheville market than that paid for the fancy fruit shipped in from the Pacific coast. Putting the fruit growing of the State on a commercial business basis. has been a great incentive to our growers at home, and has attracted a good deal of attention from people in other States desiring to invest in apple orchards. In order to place our State to the front as a commercial apple-producing State, and bring in apple buyers, I have been compiling each spring a series of reports on fruit prospects and publishing them in the New York Fruit Trade Journal. These reports, coupled with our winnings last year at the National Horticultural Congress, have brought in so many inquiries for North Carolina fruit lands that it looks now as if it will soon be necessary to put in an assistant to give his whole time to this work. Many orchards planted for cider and brandy making and neglected on account of prohibition legislation are now being pruned and cultivated and turned into commercial orchards. Every year new orchards of improved varieties are being planted, and young orchards are coming into bearing. In order to keep in closer touch with our fruit growers, and be able to advise them at different seasons of the year regarding timely orchard work, Prof. Sherman and I began three years ago the compilation of a State census on commercial orcharding. One hundred trees of any one class of fruits is taken as the unit of calculation. A special noting blank was prepared and sent out to fruit growers. Additional information was obtained by Mr. S. C. Clapp, Nursery and Orchard Inspector, who reports on orchards to both the Divisions of Entomology and Horticulture. A recapitulation of our orchard records up to date shows that we have now 1835 commercial orchards containing 915,000 trees. A good idea of the growth of commercial orcharding in the State is shown in the development of the Department of Horticulture at the State Fair. When I came here four years ago the whole fruit exhibit of the State was accommodated on two small tables, which seemed to be an annex to the poultry exhibit. In 1907 Secretary Pogue asked me to take the direction of the Department of Horticulture. Believing that it would be to the advantage of the fruit-growing interests of the State, I set about the collection of an exhibit to properly represent Carolina fruit conditions. Each year the fruit exhibit has doubled in size until this year it filled half of the new cement building devoted to agricultural and horticultural products. I have already given notice to the management of the Fair that next year the fruit display will require the entire center of the new building. At the State Fair many of our own Carolina people remarked that they did not know their own State could produce such splendid fruit. Ever since taking up my work here I have had confidence in the horticultural resources of the Old North State. It has been my fixed ambition to place her as the leading fruit State in the Union. With this end in view I went last year to the exhibition of the National Horticultural Congress and took with me a small but representative exhibit of the State fruit products. We took a few small premiums and made the best showing we could with what we had at hand, but we did more than that, we learned the rules of the game. I told them I had only come in a preliminary way, but that they would hear again from North. Carolina. Ever since that date I have been preparing for the contest this year. The thousand dollars asked from you at the last board meeting was one of the means to that end. I promised at that time that if the appropriation was given me for making the exhibit I would do my utmost to win the sweepstakes and place North Carolina as the first fruit State in the Union. I am proud to say I have kept my promise and brought back home the Sweepstakes Trophy for the Best General Fruit Collection in the United States. This trophy is worth in money $300, but the winning of it means hundreds of thousands of dollars to the State, for it places us first in the Union. Four years ago when I began this work it was said that fruit growing was a dead issue in the State. Now we stand first in the Union. I feel that I have accomplished something. As you, sir, aptly remarked on hearing of our success, "We have written a new chapter in the history of the Old North State." The complete awards on the State's Horticultural Exhibit are as follows: PREMIUMS WON AT NATIONAL HORTICULTURAL CONGRESS, COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa. Silver trophy, value $300.00, sweepstakes on best display of fruits in United States. Silver trophy, value $150.00, best display of apples from Eastern and Gulf States. Silver trophy, sweepstakes on best collection of nuts in United States. Silver trophy, best collection of English walnuts. Silver trophy, best display of vegetables from Eastern and Gulf States. Copper trophy, best plate of peanuts in United States-Mr. Geo. W. Green, Wilson, N. C. Gold medal, best display commercially canned corn. Gold medal, best display commercially canned tomatoes. Gold medal, best display commercially canned pears. Gold medal, best box oranges-Miss Emma J. Howland, Beaufort, N. C. Gold medal, best collection filberts-Mrs. W. R. Hollowell, Goldsboro, N. C. Gold medal, best plates of nuts grown by exhibitor—J. M. Franck, Richlands, N. C. Gold medal, best general display Japanese persimmons-Mr. Betts, Raleigh, N. C. Gold medal, best general display American persimmons-Jim Higgs, Raleigh, N. C. Apple Special-Best ten plates of apples, not less than five varieties, shown from any State in the Union-First prize awarded to Sparger Orchard Co., Mt. Airy, N. C. This prize, consisting of a Power Spraying Outfit complete, including engine, valued at $175.00, was competed for by over thirty States. Best display of pears in commercial packages-Third prize awarded Sparger Orchard Co., Mt. Airy, N. C. Best plate display of grapes-First prize awarded to State Test Farm, Pender Exhibit of lemons-Second prize, diploma, L. W. Holt, Burlington, N. C. Best display of red sweet potatoes-First prize, merchandise, T. B. Parker, Raleigh, N. C. Best display white onions-Third prize, merchandise, Ex-sheriff Noland, Haywood County, N. C. Best display pumpkins-Third prize, merchandise, Ex-sheriff Noland, Haywood County, N. C. Best-packed barrel of apples-Third prize, merchandise, Bolling Hall, Waynesville, N. C. Marshall Bros.' Special.-Best ten plates Winesap apples-First prize, 100 firstclass cherry trees, value $60.00, won by Bolling Hall, Waynesville, N. C. Stark Bros.' Special.-Best plate Stayman Winesap apples-First prize, 250 firstclass Stayman Winesap apple trees, value $50.00, won by J. C. Bushnell, Saluda, N. C. Prizes on plate exhibits of apples: Buckingham-First prize, $2.00, Sparger Orchard Co., Mt. Airy, N. C. Hoover―Third prize, 50 cents, Clarence Call, North Wilkesboro, N. C. American Limbertwig-Second prize, $1.00, Sparger Orchard Co., Mt. Airy, N. C. |