The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1904-03-01
Horticultural Notes
By F. WALDEN.


in raising fruit and wheat in the Walla
Walla valley in the early days of that
country. All that he said was good,
but he closed his address by making
an appeal to the farmers to keep their
sons on the farm. He said in substance
that many boys left the farm and went
to the city because they wanted amuse-
ment. There they soon drifted away
from steady habits and spent their
evenings in one continuous round of
amusement Pretty soon they realized
that they were falling behind fnan-
cially and their work, if they had any,
was being neglected. They became dis
couraged and resorted to gambling to
replenish their failing income. They
became reckless and soon Certified to
the DEVIL The doctor feelingly
warned parents to keep their sons out
of the city unless they had steady en-
sight as would keep them out of bad
society. In order that this ruin of
young men from the farm might be
reduced to the minimum he said that
the home should be made attractive
and the boys should be interested in
the farm work, so that they would feel
personal luGcIo LII IG'
There is no doubt but DR.. Blalock
touched on a vital matter in this coun-
sci to parents with reference to their
bows drifting to the city. The city is
a good place for boy with some def
mite object in view and with sufficient
safeguards about him to keep him out
of the clutches of bad associates.
Without such safeguards in many cases
the boy who goes to the city with no
definite object in view, except it be to
have a good time, would be better Off
with mill stone about his neck and
cast into the sea. The country is pay
ing heavy tribute to Gambrinus In the
ruined sons and daughters who help to
make up the prudes and pimps of the
tenderloins of our large cities
Not long since I met gentleman
who lives in a city and practices law,
but owns farm. He has small or
chard on his farm which he says is not
doing well. The apples are small and
nearly worthless. He thinks that his
trees have something the matter with
their hearts. His theory is that If an
apple tree is hollow at the heart it is
ruined and cannot bear good fruit. He
informed me that he intended to bore
into every one of his apple trees and
where he found them hollow he would
cut them down. Many of us older peo-
pie can remember when our mothers and
grandmothers treated their cows for
"the hollow horn.' To have suggest
ed to these dear old people that they
were hoaxed would have been almost
dangerous to the small boy. But we
have outgrown that notion so that no
intelligent person now ever thinks OF
irving to cure a cow of the hollow horn.
The hollow tree disease belongs to the
same class of fads. No man would
ever think of cutting down tree be-
cause it happens to be hollow at the
center of the trunk, if he properly I'M
derstood the functions of each part of
the tree. The center of any tree is
useful to the tree only in the sense of
adding strength to it's body. The life
and growth of the tree is wholly on
the outside. If tree is strong enough
to stand up against the winds and to
bear it's load of fruit without its body
giving away, it will bear just as well
and Just as large fruit with hollow
trunk as if it was sound. There was
come o+bar cause for the inferior fruit