«n Lib. AGBIC.

m

;HOW TO

G ROW AND
MA R K E T
F R U I T

PRICE 50 C.ENTS

/ OF THE

( COLLEGE OF

How to Grow and
Market Fruit

Practical Explanations and
Directions for Making
Fruit Trees Produce Profit

PUBLISHED BY

HARRISON'S NURSERIES

BERLIN, MARYLAND

Copyright IQTI, by Orlando Harrison

WE FEEL that acknowledgment should be made to
the following men for the help they have given in
making "How to Grow and Market Fruit" complete
and reliable. From their constructive criticism of
the manuscript we have been able to get many valuable points.
We thank them here, and the use and appreciation of the ideas
they supplied will be permanent commendation of their knowl-
edge of fruit growing and their courtesy.

On the spraying chapters, the help of Mr. G. R. Cushman,
Baltimore, Md. (of Thomsen Chemical Company), has been
invaluable; for their criticism on the book in general we are
indebted to Prof. W. F. Massey, Salisbury, Md.; Prof. H. E.
Van Deman, Washington, D. C.; Mr. W. H. Collingwood, of
the "Rural New Yorker;" Prof. L. H. Bailey, Ithaca, N. Y.;
Mr. J. H. Hale, South Glastonbury, Conn.; Mr. Gabriel Hiester,
Harrisburg, Pa.; Mr. G. P. Miller, Romney, W. Va.; Mr. D.
Gold Miller, Gerardstown, W. Va.; Mr. D. Maurice Wertz,
Waynesboro, Pa.; Mr. E. J. Rook, Medina, N. Y.; Mr. Jacob
R. Edmonds, Hagerstown, Md. ; Messrs. Terpenning & Herring,
Ulster Park, N. Y.; the Department of Entomology of Pennsyl-
vania, Harrisburg, Pa> / V ,' ,' : .? '

n Lib

46MC.

Designed, written and printed by
The MePartend PuWMty Service, Harrisburg, Pa.

Example of good air-drainage. Exposure to south and east, yet orchard ideally
located. Owned by W. J. Lewis & Bro., Pittston, Pa. (Photo by W. J. Peck.)

Pear trees and grape-vines along road. Any fruit trees or vines good for this. Practice
utilizes otherwise waste space. Should be copied everywhere.

Cowpeas planted in rows for combined soil improvement and pea crop. Applicable to
any farm. Young apple trees in Harrison's Nurseries.

Clean cultivation. Clean, whitewashed bark, low, open heads, in Hood River orchard.

3

Clean cultivated orchard in Delaware. Higher heads not so desirable as lower ones.

Splendid care of young trees, and effective Norway Spruce windbreak (Pennsylvania)

Young orchards should be cultivated clean. Acme harrow will do the work well.

Where help and time are scarce, plowing and leaving alternate strips is good practice.

4

Harrison's Service to Growers

YOU probably know that our nurseries comprise about two
thousand acres in young fruit trees and strawberry
plants, and that we own, or have interests in, bearing
orchards of apples, peaches, pears, etc., which cover four thou-
sand acres and contain two hundred thousand trees.

The orchards are scattered here and there over four states.
Our bearing trees are on mountain land and low land, on all
slopes, in all kinds of soil. Every kind of disease and every
sort of "bug" by which fruit trees are affected has to be fought,
and every known method of cultivation, fertilizing, protect-
ing, pruning, picking, packing and selling can be found in
use — at one time or another — in our orchards.

Starting as many young trees and plants as we do, planting
and caring for as many orchard trees as we have, we get a
practical working knowledge of how to grow fruit. We work out
the thing from planting seeds to receiving the checks for the
fruit. We know just what our fruit costs. What is said here
is the most practical kind of hard-won knowledge.

To decide the merits of a cake, eat a piece of it. Our cake
has been more than sampled. We have eaten a big piece of
it — have even made a steady diet of it for thirty years. It is
delicious and wholesome. This proves that our materials are
right, our recipe good and our methods correct; for we have
succeeded in growing good trees, and in growing and selling choice
fruit — succeeded beyond what most men think is possible.
Our young trees have come to be the standard for this country.
Our orchards pay big.

Three or four years ago the thought came to us that our
experiences ought to be interesting and valuable to a large
number of growers and planters of fruit. So we started Harri-
son's Service Bureau, and invited our friends to ask questions.
Soon, however, so many questions were asked that nearly
all of our time was needed to answer them personally, and for
this reason we designed the first edition of "How To Grow
Fruit," published year before last. This book contained a digest
of what we had to say about the common processes of fruit-
growing— and letters answering most of the queries received.

Our success with "How To Grow Fruit," the ^story, has
been as marked as in propagating fruit trees and in growing
fruit. So we have decided to go a step further and give the
public a book along the same lines. This book we call "How
to Grow and Market Fruit," and it now is in your hands.
It will anticipate most of your questions, we think, and it may
tell you things you would like to know, but which you have
not asked about, for it outlines "how we do it" in most of the
processes and methods of fruit-culture. Should, however,
a situation arise which is not provided for in the book, our
stenographers are "on the job," and we urge you to write
fully for a personal reply.

HARRISON'S NURSERIES

BERLIN, MARYLAND

The Fourteen Essentials

READ the entire book. Every chapter, and almost every
paragraph, is related to every other chapter or paragraph,
as each phase of fruit-growing is related to every other
phase. The index will direct you to all the pages on which
any subject is mentioned. Where a tree, orchard or plant
is mentioned in the following pages, the discussion often em-
braces any or all kinds of fruit plantations.

Fourteen elements, or conditions, are necessary for growing
all fruit. Each kind needs certain special treatment, yet if
any of these fourteen elements or conditions are lacking, the
result is failure, complete or partial; when all are present, and
the few special attentions are properly given, tremendous
crops are reasonably certain year after year — crops of highly
colored, richly flavored, juicy, firm and flawless apples, peaches,
pears, plums, cherries, quinces, grapes or small fruits.

The maker of wagons, watches, shoes or other articles must
have machinery and tools, oil, fuel, power, a supply of raw
material, and other essentials — a factory and an organization.
An orchard is a factory; the product is the fruit. By having
the essentials, we can make fruit. The greatest difference
between a wagon factory and a fruit factory is this: We can
make any style of wagon and use any method, but in produc-
ing fruit we must choose the size and characteristics desired
from among a few dozen varieties, and secure the finished
product by following nature's plans.

Growing fruit is easy, and almost any one can do it, yet
it is more complicated than wagon-making or watch-making.
The fruit-grower is forced to adopt or originate ideas and
methods which fit the conditions; he cannot make the con-
ditions fit the idea or blueprint. This requires study, obser-
vation, judgment, work, skill and perseverance. Without these
the fruit-grower must fail; with them, he can make of fruit-
growing something better than he could make of anything
else in the world.

The fourteen requirements of a fruit factory are suitable
soil, nitrogen, potash, phosphorus, lime, decaying vegetable
matter and water, light and warmth in the right proportions,
the absence of enemies, the right varieties, good trees, good
marketing and personally applied know-how on the part of
the grower.

Every process described here is intended to help the pro-
ducer secure some of these vital elements with the least pos-
sible labor and cost. That is the fruit-grower's ^problem; his
degree of success depends upon how he solves it, no matter
what kind of fruit he grows or in what quantities.

Things Needed by All Fruits Alike

WHILE each kind of fruit requires special treatment, cer-
tain primary conditions are necessary for all. Methods
which produce these conditions with apples, for instance,
are equally good for the peach orchard or the strawberry patch.
That which is right for one fruit, within these limits, is right
for all.

Of these conditions, the first to be considered is the getting
and keeping of plant food and of moisture, which requires
three-fourths of all the effort expended in orchard culture.
First, we shall consider the question of moisture — of both too
much and too little water.

TOO MUCH WATER

A fruit tree will not yield if water stands about its roots —
if it has "wet feet." There must be good drainage to lower
the level of stagnant water in the ground. This is understood
so generally that nearly every one avoids low or swampy lands,
or underdrains them thoroughly before setting out trees.
Because it provides quick natural drainage (ignoring the other
reasons), sloping land is better than level land for orchards.

Good natural drainage is greatly to be desired, but seldom
is found. Even where it is markedly good, the use of tiles will
give results which warrant putting them in. Generally speak-
ing, only the highest, steepest land should be left without
drainage. Flat lands nearly always need underdraining, and
sloping or rolling land often has a close, hard subsoil which
keeps water standing near the surface, at the roots of the trees.

While land may be dry enough in ordinary seasons, in the
wet season the extra amount and quality of fruit due to under-
draining often will exceed in value the entire cost of installing
the drainage. On hillsides, the underdrains frequently will
prevent washing. In any land, the space around a seepage
spot or spring may be the most fertile in the field, and the only
way to make this available is by draining.

By giving each place the drainage it needs, you can make
conditions uniform throughout the orchard, adapting the
entire area to the same cultural methods. If some spots are
hard and sour, while others are loose and dry, they must be
given different fertilizers and cultivation.

No matter how rich in plant food a soil may be, too much
water will render the food useless for trees. Wise folks may
say the land is too sour or too cold, or needs this or that. No
matter what the name of the trouble is, you cannot get fruit
from land that is too wet. Here are some of the reasons:

Before plant food can be taken up by the roots, much of it
has to be prepared by bacteria. The best known of these are
the legume bacteria, without which the clovers, peas and

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

vetch will not thrive. Other bacteria are just as important.
All are living organisms, the same as animals or plants, but in
a lower form, and they must have food. They live on vege-
table matter and some plant-food elements which will not
dissolve in water. In digesting these foods the bacteria do not
destroy them; they merely change them into forms in which
the trees can use them, as hogs or steers transform their foods
into forms that can be used by the trees. Since nearly all
plant-food elements must go through this process before they
are available to plants, the bacteria are vitally necessary.
When these bacteria die, their bodies are consumed by the
plants, thus leaving no plant food to go to waste.

Under proper conditions the soil is full of bacteria, each
handful containing millions. The most successful fruit-grower
is the man who puts the soil into a condition favorable to these
friendly bacteria, and has the greatest number feeding his
trees and plants. Too much water will destroy the friendly
bacteria and prevent their coming and multiplying. More-
over, it will hasten the growth of myriads of bacteria that are
injurious to plants.

A wet soil packs. It contains little air. It partakes of the
nature of a stone or piece of wood, and no one expects trees
to derive nourishment from these. Favorable conditions help
fruit trees to thrive; unfavorable conditions not only cut off
this help, but aid the enemies of the trees.

The subsoil in an orchard should be loosened at the start,
and every few years afterward. This is discussed in detail
later in this book. Drainage helps to keep the soil loose as low
as the bottom of the ditch, and in dry seasons this loose soil
retains more moisture than packed soil, because there are more
open spaces to hold water.

Drainage improves the texture of the soil, and has the effect
of making it more fertile. The food elements in mellow soil
can be used by the trees, while, if the soil is caked, the roots can-
not get the food that is there. With a good drainage system,
surplus water will run away quickly after the frost is out of
the ground in the spring, and the soil will be dry enough to
work much earlier than land not underdrained. Make up
your mind to drain at the start; the young trees need it, and
the work can be done more easily then.

The material to use for drains depends upon circumstances.
Study the lay and character of the land, secure prices on dif-
ferent materials from home and other sources, learn about
freight rates and labor, and then select that which will be
cheapest for the service which it gives.

In very loose soil, cement drains throughout the orchard
have been known to pay. Where the fall is more than one foot
in one hundred, stone, lumber or tile will be satisfactory.
A buried stone wall will carry off the water where there is a
decided fall; but, if the slope is less than one foot in one hun-
dred, use nothing except tile.

The bottoms of drains should be at least two feet deep
in heavy clay and three feet deep in sand. They should be as

8

TOO LITTLE WATER IN THE SOIL

deep as possible and still catch the heavy rains before they
cause surface washing. Whether they should be put between
every row of trees, between every two or three rows, or only
in the low places, depends upon how much water must be
carried away.

Water wants to run downhill. If the land is nearly flat, use
a level to find an outlet. Usually you will be surprised about
the fall. Try to get an outlet which has plenty of drop-way,
but it is better to drain into an open ditch which requires care
two or three times a year than not to drain at all. No point
in the drain should be lower than the outlet, and the grade
should be perfect — without ups and downs. A fall of from
three to six inches in one hundred feet will give good service,
but with so slight a drop you should use a surveyor's level
in getting the bottom of the ditch right. Drive stakes every
fifty or one hundred feet, having the tops flush with the ground,
and measure the depth of the drain from these.

A six-inch main will carry off the water from a twelve-acre
field. No main drains should be smaller than five inches.
Laterals should be from two and one-half to three inches in
diameter.

Examine the mouths of all drains a couple of times a year,
to keep them free from obstructions. Put wire screening over
the openings, to keep out animals, frogs and snakes.

It is well to plow a furrow, every fall, midway between rows
of trees where there is no drain. This, with the tiles and ditches,
will keep the orchard during the winter and early spring in
better shape than an orchard where the snow and rain fall
on the even surface.

TOO LITTLE WATER

Lack of water during May, June and July starves more
trees, and is responsible for more poor fruit, than any other
cause. This is due to the fact that growers do not realize how
much water a tree requires, and do not know how to prevent
the waste of what they have. Even trees near a hydrant or
pump are allowed to suffer, while a few gallons of water
daily would enable them to produce a heavy crop.

In the drier sections of the United States, trees often suffer
least, because growers there know how to keep the little rain
that they do get. In all the eastern and central states, the
rainfall is always sufficient to produce a heavy crop of leaves
and fruits. Most of this comes in the winter and early spring;
the problem is to keep it. In the West, irrigation is necessary,
but it will not pay in the East unless the water can be run on
the land easily. Bulletin No. 116 of the United States De-
partment of Agriculture discusses irrigation at length. If you
want to put water on your land, get that bulletin.

A few growers of strawberries have used "artificial rain"
profitably. This is best supplied with three-quarter inch iron
pipes, pierced with needle holes every few inches, and laid
on the surface of the ground; or, better, elevated out of the

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

way. With the pipe on supports, a fine rain will fall whenever
the water is turned on.

Plants and trees require from three hundred to five hundred
pounds of water for every pound of dry matter grown. But that
does not tell whaf» we want to know — how much water fruit
trees need. The following statements are based on long and
careful experiments made in America, England and Germany.

Trees use water in two ways — by putting it into fruit and
leaves, and by evaporation through the leaves. A stream of
water constantly flows up every growing tree and evaporates
through the leaves.

Apples need about three times as much water as peaches,
and other fruits come between the two. To grow one ton of
green timothy requires more than one hundred and fifty tons
of water. Apples and apple leaves are more juicy than timothy
stalks. If we take one hundred barrels (250 bushels) of apples
as the yield per acre, we have a little more than six tons of
fruit. The leaves and new wood on an acre would weigh at
least a ton, so seven tons is a fair average of the weight of the
orchard product from one acre.

If apples use water at the same rate as timothy, the trees
on one acre will require ten hundred and fifty tons of water,
which would make a layer more than nine inches deep.

The average rainfall between March and August, in all
fruit regions of this country which do not depend upon irriga-
tion, varies from fifteen to twenty inches. That moisture
which comes before March the frozen crust prevents from
soaking into the soil; that coming after August is of no use to
the crop. There is no way of determining how much evapo-
rates from the soil or how much drains away; what is known
is that nine inches must be kept for the use of trees, cr the
crop will suffer.

Most of the feeding roots of fruit trees or vines are in the
first thirty-six inches of soil. Anchor roots go deeper, but
gather moisture and food for their own use only. This thirty-
six inches of soil must be loosened so it will contain at least
a foot of water, for allowance must be made for evaporation
throughout the summer. The first three feet must be even
looser than this, as the soil must contain a certain quantity
of air for the use of the roots. In other words, the first three
feet must consist of one foot of water and less than two feet
of earth. The exact number of inches does not matter; the
principle is to have enough water, with drainage to take care
of the surplus.

The soil must be fine and loose; fine, because the smaller
the soil particles are, the more water will cling to them; loose
down deep, because the particles unite when they are packed,
squeezing the water out and preventing it from circulating.
Roots will not grow into solid masses of earth when they can
find their way into loose soil.

Still another, and most important, reason for providing
plenty of moisture in the soil, is that moisture is necessary to
make the plant food available. The amount of this food in

10

METHODS OF KEEPING MOISTURE

the soil does not indicate how much plant growth that soil
will produce. Put pure nitrogen, potash and phosphorus on
a stone, a board or a lump of dry dirt, and the heap will not
produce anything, although it is exceedingly "rich and fertile."
You can pile fertilizer upon your acres by the ton, but you
must see that the soil is in a receptive condition before you
can hope to have the plant foods do their work.

When the thirty-six inches of soil is made fine enough and
loose enough to hold the foot of water, it is in pretty good shape
to feed the roots. The water which surrounds every particle
of soil dissolves the crude elements, finishing the work of the
bacteria, and serves foods to the plants in digestible form.
Feeding roots need not touch all the food; if the water can
dissolve the food, it will bring it to the roots as it is needed.
Without enough moisture the soil would be hard and un-
friendly. Nothing is so important to the crop as water. Every
pint lacking means the loss of fruit.

The right methods make it easy to keep all the water neces-
sary; with wrong methods, or no method, it is impossible to
have enough, unless rain falls every few days during the grow-
ing season, which seldom happens. Unlike other essentials,
the keeping of the necessary moisture does not cost much,
for this really is accomplished by work that should be done
in any circumstances.

Ground that is hard on the surface and undisturbed below
cannot hold two inches of water in the first three feet. This
would be too little even for peaches. There is water more than
three feet down, of course, and some of this is brought up by
capillarity, but because of the compact earth there and the
distance from the feeding roots, little from this source ever
benefits the trees.

Capillarity is the attraction which some substances have
for others. It causes a drop of water to cling to or run along the
bottom edge of a slanting board, rather than fall straight
down. It makes oil follow a wick up to a flame. Only when
capillarity is working well in the soil can evaporation steal
that vital nine inches of water from you.

The example of the lamp-wick shows another force — the
attraction of dryer air and sunshine for soil moisture. These
draw up water constantly, except for a few hours during nights
when heavy dew covers the ground. Even then the soil con-
tinues to send moisture to the surface, if it had been doing
that during the day, and the air must continue to absorb it,
as is shown by the fact that a wet cloth laid on the ground
during a damp evening will dry during the night.

METHODS OF KEEPING MOISTURE

Professor L. H. Bailey of the College of Agriculture of
New York has explained this subject so plainly that any one
can understand it. He says:

"How shall we save the water? By holding it in the earth.
If the soil is very fine and yet compact, the capillary pores or

XI

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

small open spaces between particles will hold enormous quan-
tities of water. If, then, we break up these open spaces on the
surface next the atmosphere, we shall prevent the water from
passing off by evaporation.

"The whole subject of saving moisture, therefore, falls
into two means. The catching and holding of it (or the making
of a reservoir), and the prevention of evaporation. The first
thing to do, therefore, is to plow or loosen up the soil and sub-
soil to a sufficient depth. When we have the water, we must
then work the surface in such a way that we can keep it.

"It will thus be seen how useless it is to try to save the
water by beginning tillage when a drought is threatened. If
the land has not been prepared, there will be little water to
save by that time. It will either have soaked away through
the soil into drains, or it will have evaporated long before the
need of it was noticed.

"The hardpan may be so near the surface that but little
water will stay in the soil. The dish-pan formed by it is so
shallow that the spring and early summer rains make mud
puddles on the surface and pass off before the water is needed
by the trees. Such soil needs to be plowed very deeply, and
the subsoil broken up to increase the storage capacity for
water.

"If the soil is sandy, soft and leachy, shallow breaking up
is the thing needed. Such soil may be loosened too much.
The water-storage capacity of soils may be increased by mixing
humus or vegetable matter with them. It will thus be seen
that the methods of conserving or saving moisture for the time
when it is needed by the trees or plants must be thought out
and worked out by each grower for his own place.

"Any body or substance which is interposed between the
air and moist soil will prevent evaporation of the moisture.
The ground is moist underneath a board, so is it underneath
a layer of sawdust or of ashes; and so is it underneath a layer
of two or three inches of fine, dry earth. Shallow cultivation
will make a mulch of this kind on the surface. The orchardist
should work the land as often as it begins to get hard and
crusted — as a fit statement, it may be said that fruit lands
ought to be worked every ten days, also after every rain, before
a crust forms. Land allowed to lie bare over winter will weather
rapidly, but clay-lands of a lighter nature will gully badly.'*

Land which lies rough-ploughed over winter will take up lots
of water, but no more than it will if it is covered with crimson
clover, peas, vetch, rye, or any other cover crop, and these
crops have many other invaluable advantages. Cover crops
save moisture. They must be put in during July; then, by the
time the plants begin to draw water, the trees do not need it,
in fact, should be checked. Then, if the crop is of a kind not
killed by the winter, it will grow up very rank in the spring
and help dry off the land early by absorbing water. It always
must be plowed under early in spring — about as soon as the
ground is fit to work — or it will rob the trees of water and
food, and do much more damage than it does good.

12

Home fruit and flower garden worth twenty times its cost. Dwarf trees are most suitable.

Clover as soil improvement and cover crop. Note superior care given young trees.

:•& ' ~~

Stone wall buried here, providing drainage. Orchard of W. J. Lewis & Bro., Pittston, Pa.

Harrison Ray peach orchard, August. Left: Cover crop. Right: Asparagus inter-crop.

13

Beans as inter- and cover-crop among apples. Gives soil improvement and cash returns.

Strawberries as inter-crop among apple trees. This orchard is irrigated.

Action of proper charge of dynamite correctly placed for subsoiling (and sometimes for
digging tree holes). Ground heaved, not thrown out and scattered.

14

METHODS OF KEEPING MOISTURE

To put soil into shape to store water, subsoiling should be
done thoroughly before trees are planted, and every couple of
years afterward until they are ten years old. If it is done with
a plow, the first subsoiling the year before trees are planted
should cover the whole area; at the next, the 'year after the
trees are planted, a four-foot strip should be left where trees
are, and later the plowing should be narrower each time until
the last time only one or two subsoil furrows should be plowed
midway between tree rows. Subsoil plowing helps greatly
to hold moisture, but there are other reasons for doing it.
Subsoiling with dynamite is a thoroughly practical method,
and should be employed on three-fourths of the farms of the
East.

An underdrain midway between tree rows wonderfully
helps the soil to store moisture by keeping the earth porous
and fine. During the winter and spring the surplus water
sinks into the earth to the level of the drain, where it falls,
then finds its way horizontally to the drain. In doing this
it opens and makes fine the soil it passes through, and the
spaces remain filled with water until the roots draw it out.

Another moisture holder is humus. Decaying grass stalks
always are damp, and they, too, loosen the soil. Earth which
is full of them seldom becomes so dry as pure clay or sand.
Pure loam is nothing more or less than humus. Mulches of
all kinds plowed under will fill the soil with moisture-retaining
material, and at the same time will make it more and more
loamy. A heavy, stiff clay can be almost transformed in this
way, because the moisture helps to disintegrate the cruder
earth into loose loam. Humus helps to drain away the sur-
plus water, and helps to hold that necessary nine inches.

By far the best way to loosen subsoil is with dynamite.
This is not generally known, but orchardists will find they can
reduce tillage expenses greatly and save much time with it.
The exploding of from a sixth to a half pound of the right
kind, two or three feet under the surface, loosens and makes
fine all the soil. Young trees will make great strides if they
are planted in dynamited holes.

The dynamiting can be done in orchards or about trees of
any age. If done rightly, it will accomplish the work without
breaking or tearing away any roots, leaving the soil in con-
dition to give the roots twice the feeding-ground they had
before and providing perfect drainage and water-storing capac-
ity. The use of dynamite is the secret of success in growing
fruit by mulching systems without so much plow and harrow
tillage. This is the only way known by which soil can be loosened
deeply after trees fill the space with roots, and often it is the
cheapest and quickest way to loosen it at any time. Heavy
clay lands are handled especially well by this method; in sand
the advantages are least. With only plowing and drainage
to rely on, one thorough subsoiling has to last during the life
of the orchards. Good results can be depended upon for many
years, but when signs point to the soil becoming too compact,
dynamite will loosen it up as easily as at first, even though

IS

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

the trees are large. See further information about dynamite
on pages 34 and 37.

A mulch of some kind (dust, dead grass, weeds, etc.) is
needed to insulate the moisture from the air. In all sections
where the raintall between March to August does not exceed
from sixteen to eighteen inches, tillage and cover crops are
test adapted to retain moisture. The land should be plowed
in April or May, turning under the cover crop, then gone over
immediately with a Cutaway, spring-tooth or Acme harrow,
and then harrowed with spike-tooth every eight or ten days
until in July. The new cover crop should be sown in July,
partly to use the remaining moisture. The trees do not need
water after that time. They should begin then to ripen wood
and fruit.

Only two or three harrowings with the spring-tooth are
needed. The teeth should go about three inches deep, and a
leveler-drag should be attached to the harrow. For the remain-
ing times use a spike-tooth harrow. A roller should be used
but little, except on very light soil, and should be followed
at once by a smoothing harrow. A day or so after every rain,
harrow to break the crust, even if you had finished just before
the rain. Never allow a baked crust to form, for it will quickly
suck the water out of the soil beneath.

The whole idea, so far as moisture is concerned, is to keep
a layer of dust-dry, powdered soil two to three inches deep on
the surface all the time. As it is not handy to dig around each
tree every time you harrow, and impossible to harrow with
any satisfaction closer to a tree than a foot or eighteen inches,
a heavy mulch of leaves, straw or dead grass should be placed
around each tree. Young trees especially need this, since
they have small root systems, and the soil right where they
stand dries out quickly. This mulch is a great labor-saver,
and does the work well.

In sections where the rainfall from March to August is as
much as twenty inches, the sod mulch system is, without doubt,
the best way of taking care of the moisture problem in an
orchard. The essence of this system is to grow between the
trees enough grass to nearly supply the trees with plant food
when it decays. A little commercial fertilizer is added. No
part of the grass is taken away. It is mowed two or three
times a season and most of the cutting raked up and piled
under the trees. Sometimes this mulch is eighteen inches deep
under the trees and for a few feet outside in a circle, although
over the rest of the ground an inch or two is all that should
be left. The ground under it always is moist. Each season's
growth is worked into the surface of the soil by frost and water
(or by a cutaway harrow) thus providing another moisture
holder. It is in connection with a complete sod mulch system
that dynamite is most valuable, in ways any grower can see,
for the ground never is plowed or torn up.

At least six inches of water are needed to grow this ^heavy
crop of erass, hence no less than eighteen inches of rain will
be enough for a mulch sod system. If the grass contains much

16

METHODS OF KEEPING MOISTURE

clover, more water will be needed. Care must be used in dry
sections and seasons to mow the grass sufficiently early in
spring, and to keep it mowed more or less close to prevent it
drawing too much water from the soil. It must be remembered
that the necessary eighteen inches or more of rainfall must
come between the spring breakup and August i, and not in
a whole year. This method certainly takes less work than
cultivation. It should be considered by every one where con-
ditions warrant its use. Thorough underdrainage should
accompany it.

SUMMARY

Trees must not have wet feet. The level of stagnant water
in soil must be, at the very least, two or three feet down, if
trees are to bear worth while.

Too much water destroys friendly bacteria that are necessary
to put plant foods into forms in which trees can use them.

Too much water renders plant food useless by changing it
chemically and by caking soil.

Carefully laid underdrains are almost an orchard necessity,
and do good in many ways.

Breaking up hardpan helps drainage. Cover crops help to
dry off land in early spring.

Apple trees must have at least enough water to make a layer
a foot deep, and this must be held in the top thirty-six inches
of soil. Other fruits can get along with slightly less, but must
have enough.

Too little water starves trees directly by allowing them to
dry up, and to even a greater extent by making it impossible
for roots to get the food in the soil. Plant foods and fertilizers are
of no use unless they continually are accompanied by enough
moisture to dissolve them and insure that they soak to the roots.

There is always enough rainfall between March and August
to grow big crops, if it is rightly conserved. Right methods
make this easy, wrong methods make it impossible.

To store enough water, ground must be broken up deeply,
thoroughly and often; and to avoid its escape the surface
must be worked and kept in a dust mulch, to prevent evapora-
tion during the growing season, if other mulch is not used. This
conservation tillage must begin early in spring, while ground is
still damp, and must be done every ten days or after every rain
till in July or August.

Organic matter in the soil helps to hold moisture.

With sod-mulch systems, the grass must be mowed often to
prevent its using up the moisture intended to be saved.

Feeding Fruit Trees

PROFESSOR BAILEY has put so many of the facts of this
subject into clear and lucid words that he deserves to
be quoted freely. In stating the situation he says this:

"Any land which is fit for the growing of crops will main-
tain a fruit plantation throughout its existence without the
addition of plant-food, and enable the trees to produce at the
same time a normal quantity of fruit. But the profit in fruit-
growing lies in securing the extra quantity and superior qual-
ity, and this result demands fertilizing of the land and every
other good care. The extra quality and extra quantity seem
to depend a great deal on the fertility we supply."

When we remove fifteen or more bushels of fruit from a
tree every year, we are going beyond "normal quantities,"
and additional plant-food will be required because of this.
Nitrogen, phosphorus and potash are the principal foods on
which fruit trees live. A few other minerals, almost always
present, enter into their diet, but in quantities so small that
they may be overlooked. The soil is the table at which they
eat, while water and tillage, sunlight and air, are the cooks.
Each food must be supplied in the right quantity, in the right
proportion with others, and in the right way, if the trees are
to thrive.

Food elements must be given in the right condition, as
partly explained in the talk on moisture, or trees cannot con-
sume them. Hay, raw meat, or raw and unground grain con-
tain all the elements needed for men, but men would not thrive
on them. It is just as important to "grind and cook" the
nitrogen, potash and phosphorus for trees as it is to grind
and cook meat and wheat for yourself. We cannot make fruit
out of plant-food elements until they are refined.

Now, to grind and cook and refine plant-food elements, we
must have them dissolved in water. Carry them in soil that
is just as fine as it can be made, and that contains no acids
which work harmful results. We get them dissolved by saving
enough moisture for use at the right time. To have them
distributed well through fine soil, tillage or other subduing
methods must be employed.

At the beginning of the earth, all soil was rock. Gradually
this was worn down, until moss and plants got a foothold,
grew and died, mixing their dead leaves and stalks with ^the
coarse soil year after year until now there is much fine, silky
loam. The hardest soils are the same as the best, except that
the lumpy or sticky ones have not had as much treatment
from water, air and sun as the better kinds. This explains
why the kind of soil never is very important so long as proper
care is taken.

Bailey explains soil processes in this way: "Nature is a
kindly and solicitous mother. She knows that the elements
must be unlocked and worked over and digested by the roots
of plants. Plant tissues add fiber and richness to the land,

18

Left: Newly-set strawberry field, across rows. Right: Ground prepared for asparagus.

Tomatoes as inter-crop in combined apple and peach orchard. Splendid inter-crop.

Sod-mulch system in apple orchard. Left: Grass mowed and left under trees.

Sod-mulch — wet season, grass left grow high. Seven-year trees of W. J. Lewis & Bro.

19

Orchard back next woods yields $2,000 net per year. Bad location considering insects.

Three-year trees of W. J. Lewis & Bro. Note apples on tree (Stayman Winesap)

Left: Five-year tree in Harrison orchard, bearing 388 apples. Right: Clean cultivation.

How to handle sod-mulch system with young trees. Note mulch is pulled back from trunk.

20

LIME ACTION IS VITALLY NEEDED

and make it amenable to all the revivifying influences of sun
and rain and air and warmth. The plant is copartner with
the. weather in the building of the primal soils. The lichen
spreads its thin substance over the rock, sending its fibers
into the crevices and filling the chinks, as they enlarge, with
the decay of its own structure; and finally the rock is fit for the
moss or fern or creeping vine, each newcomer leaving its im-
press by which some later newcomer may profit. Finally the
rock is disintegrated and pulverized, and is ready to be still
further subdued by corn and ragweed, by other plants, or
trees."

Thus it becomes plain that to feed our trees we first must
work our ground — tear it up deeply and thoroughly pulverize
it. We must fill it full of dead grass and leaves in order to
change its texture — to change that old rock nature to loam
nature. This must be done to give roots a chance to take up
any food the soil carries. The soil itself never is food for plants.

This is where all processes work together. To conserve
moisture, we work the land. To drain, we work the land. To
do both of these, we use dynamite and heavy mulches. When
we save or get rid of water, we grind and mix the soil, which
is exactly the treatment the soil needs to improve its texture.
So far, so good; but often, to get enough fineness and mixing,
the treatment has to be continued after it could be stopped
so far as moisture is concerned.

LIME ACTION

We should like to say here, "The decay of vegetable and
animal matter produces some acids." That statement would
be clear to most people, but it is not correct. There is no such
thing as decay of these organic materials. Wherever a piece
of meat, a stalk of grass or a leaf is touched by moisture in
or on the ground, millions of bacteria attack it. They swarm
to it from every surrounding particle of earth, and feed upon it
until seemingly it disappears. In reality it does not disappear,
but is changed into other forms by the bacteria, helped to a
slight extent by the chemical action of minerals. The work
of bacteria is like that of the buzzards, which gather from every-
where and consume a dead body.

Organic matter is added to the soil in the form of manures,
leaves, rotting fruit, plowed-down cover crops, grass and
weeds, mulches, bone phosphate, etc. In consuming these,
bacteria produce acids. These acids change plant-food from
available into insoluble forms, kill the bacteria which produced
them and which are needed, and in other ways hinder or pre-
vent plant growth.

Organic matter is necessary, yet we must get rid of the acids.
Lime is the thing to do it with. The action of lime is called
sweetening. The work lime does is to deaden the acids by
taking away their "edge," making them incapable of doing
harm. Wet soils generally are especially acid.

The wood of fruit trees contains lime, in a form almost

21

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

pure. Leaves and fruit have only a trace, but fruit will grow and
mature in a shorter time, and therefore ripen earlier, or rather
more completely and uniformly, when trees have plenty of lime
than it will when they do not. The fruit also is likely to have
a higher color. For these reasons, lime can be said to have a
small food value. It can hardly be classed with the foods,
however, and its chief value comes indirectly.

Lime should be worked into the surface of the ground —
never plowed under. Harrow or disk it in. It should be put
on evenly, with a lime spreader or drill whenever possible.
On sod, even distribution over surface is all that is needed.
It may go on at any time in the year, but better avoid the
months from July until November, as then it might, by re-
leasing insoluble plant food, result in forcing fall growth
of trees — a bad thing always. From 500 to 1,000 pounds to
the acre, 16 to 35 bushels, will produce a good effect on light
land. Generally it is profitable to use a ton or more, say 50 to
80 bushels, on an acre of heavy land. The amount to use
depends on the kind of soil. The amount of humus in the soil
largely determines the amount of lime to use. Light land will
be burned by using more than 20 to 25 bushels. With heavy
clover or other sod to act upon, you can use lime more liber-
ally.

Pulverized lime usually is the best form in which to buy and
use lime. Lump lime, air-slaked in piles, or new-process lime,
which is lump lime slaked by steam, are good also, although only
90 per cent as efficient, and twice as heavy and twice as bulky.
A pound of ground limestone will do half the work of a pound
of lime. In using ground limestone, there is more than double
the weight to handle. The best form in which to buy depends
on three things — the cost to you, the freight to your field, and
the efficiency, or "strength," of what you get.

Every orchardist must learn the supreme importance of
serving food to his trees on a table properly laid. Trees are
particular. By continued study of actual conditions, and by
accumulating outside information, every one can learn what
to do to put his soil into the right shape.

SUPPLYING PLANT FOOD

In feeding trees, the first things to consider, after putting
the soil into the best shape possible, are the needs of your
particular orchard. No two pieces of land are alike. Wide
differences often will be found within a hundred yards, and
these varying conditions call for the food elements in varying
proportions.

When trees have dark leaves, bright-colored bark, and grow
a foot or more of new wood each year, they are getting about
enough nitrogen, and all you have to do is to keep the supply
at the present rate. It is possible to provide too much nitro-
gen, especially in bearing orchards. Trees are suffering from
a lack of nitrogen when the leaves are light-colored and when
they ripen and fall early in autumn, when the bark is dull

22

HOW TO SUPPLY PLANT FOODS

and dark, and when the new wood each season is less than a
foot long.

Lack of potash and of lime is shown by sappy growth, by
many suckers, and by pale, tasteless, unripe fruit. Fruit trees
use less of phosphorus than of the other food elements — •
probably only one-fifth of the number of pounds and of the
value of it, as of nitrogen, and one-sixth, as of potash. Phos-
phorus goes into fruit, leaves and wood. Potash is the most
important of the elements. Potash and phosphorus are min-
eral materials, and have to be supplied in chemical form. Nitro-
gen is supplied best by legumes — by the cover crops.

Cover crops should be called "fertility crops," for, while
they are useful in preventing washing and leaching, cement-
ing and baking, and in the holding of moisture, their greatest
value lies in their power to add directly to the richness of the
soil. Some of the plants adapted to the purpose supply nitro-
gen, and all supply organic matter — supply these materials
cheaper than they can be had from any other source. The
aim in sowing a cover crop is to plant it long enough before
killing frost to enable it to make a good, thick growth in the
fall. If the plant is one that winter-kills, this makes little dif-
ference; but, if it grows again in the spring, more vegetable
matter will be had before time to plow it down.

The stalks, leaves and roots add several tons of organic
matter to the soil. This is placed right where it will do the
most good — in the upper foot of soil, — whether the crop is
plowed under or disked in. It does its work, as has been ex-
plained before, by improving the texture of the earth, by hold-
ing moisture, by making a home for bacteria, and by returning
to the soil the plant-foods which it gathered through its roots,
together with new nitrogen gathered by the leaves.

All the legumes gather nitrogen from the air, and store it
in every fiber of the plant. One good clover, pea or vetch
crop will give your acre as much of this high-priced plant-food
as you will get in $20 worth of any commercial fertilizer. Le-
gumes use potash and phosphorus, of course, but they do not
waste it if they are left on the land — they return it whence
it came. This is true of all cover-crop plants. The foods which
they consume are only loaned to them over winter. In the
spring all the materials come back for the use of the trees,
with added nitrogen in the case of legumes, and with pro-
tection and physical soil improvement from all kinds of cover
plants.

A cover crop is sown in the latter part of the summer, when
trees have made their growth for the year, and when both
fruit and trees have begun to ripen. Newly sown plants take
up water in great amounts — take it away from the trees. This
is the thing desired at this time, for tree growth needs a
check tl:en. But, still better, young plants require a great deal
of nitrogen, but comparatively less potash and phosphorus.
As the cover crop grows, it feeds largely on the nitrogen, less
on the other elements, leaving much potash and phosphorus
for the trees, just when they need them most.

23

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

It is potash and phosphorus which put color in fruit,
which give it the rich flavor, and which harden the wood of
trees so they can stand zero weather. We build the framework
and size of our apples or peaches or grapes with nitrogen, but
we put the high quality in them with the two other foods, and
to a slight extent with lime. In this, when analyzed, lies the
explanation of why a sod-mulched tree will put a higher color
on its fruit than a cultivated one; also why a cultivated tree
generally is the larger. Sod-mulched orchards generally, com-
paratively speaking, lack nitrogen, and have plenty of potash
and phosphorus, while in cultivated orchards this condition
is likely to be reversed, or has that tendency unless corrected.

In our judgment, the orcharding system best to use is the
one that will combine the good points of these two methods,
giving trees or plants the growing material — nitrogen — in
the greatest proportions before July, and the ripening and
quality producing materials — potash and phosphorus — later.

While cover crops absorb plant-food in the fall, they are
doing another good act. The food they use generally is in
available form; that is, ready dissolved, in solution. If it were
to be left in this shape over winter, much of it would leach
away; but, when the cover plants use it, they lock it up until
spring, and so prevent its waste.

These are the principal reasons why cover crops are so
valuable in orcharding. Each man must study his own situa-
tion, decide what his trees need, and plan the best and cheapest
way to get these materials. The best sources of the needed
plant-foods will be found now in one form of the elements,
again in another. Even one kind of cover crop will not do,
year after year, so well as rotation of them.

Again Bailey has stated a point so clearly that we can not
do better than quote him: "The choice of the proper crop
for the covering of an orchard is a local matter, the same as
the determination of the method of tillage or the kind of fer-
tilizer is. There is no one cover crop which is best for all pur-
poses and all conditions. The grower must study the condi-
tion of his trees and his land, and then judge as best he may
what course he shall pursue.

"Nature's cover crops, at least upon farms, are weeds, and
these may be useful if allowed to grow in the fall after the
tillage is completed. The difficulty is that they cannot always
be relied upon to cover the land at the time when they are
wanted, most of them do not live through the winter, and they
are very likely to become a serious nuisance. It is therefore
best to substitute some other plant for the weeds.

"In the question of the choice of cover crops, the grower
must remember that there are two great classes in respect
to their power to gather nitrogen. The one class is non-legu-
minous, comprising those plants which take only such nitrogen
as has already been worked over into available form by plants
and animals; the other class is the leguminous plants, com-
prising those which have the power of appropriating and
utilizing free nitrogen.

24

Strawberries as paying inter-crop Apple trees two years old, bearing a few apples.

Tomato crop raised in this young orchard will be worth $60 an acre net each year.

Plank drag that does great work in conserving moisture. Useful for many crops.

Clean cultivation, proper heading of trees and good orchard arrangement of trees,

25

Left: Five-year tree planted In ordinary dug hole. Right: Five-year tree not fifty yards
away, planted in dynamited hole. Pole eight feet high.

Diagonal planting plan, with fillers. No. i trees, permanent; No. 2 trees, to be removed
when 10 to 12 years old; No. 3 trees, to be removed when 18 or 20 years old.

In South, heel-in like this, but in North cover tops and all with dirt — use no straw, or
mice will nest there and chew trees.

26

HOW TO SUPPLY PLANT FOODS

"For purposes of cover and protection, the non-leguminous
crops may be just as good as the nitrogen gatherers, and when
the fruit trees or plants are growing very vigorously they may
be decidedly better than the others, because, by not adding
nitrogen, they do not over-stimulate the growth. A rotation
of cover crops will nearly always be found to be important.
It is perfectly possible to put so much nitrogen into the land
that the trees or plants grow too vigorously or too late in the
season."

Some of the most useful of these cover crops will not thrive
on hard and intractable land, and in such cases a rougher and
coarser crop must be used. Bailey says further that "the
golden scale of cover crops for orchards begins with rye and
ends with crimson clover." In saying this he, no doubt, had
in mind the condition of most lands — which are hard, intract-
able, lacking in humus and poverty-stricken in many ways
at first, then becoming more mellow, richer and better drained,
as orcharding processes are worked out, until finally the soil
is in good condition.

Rye, it will be seen, is preeminently the cover crop for
rough, unsubdued land, while crimson clover is at its best
in fine, mellow, fertile soil. Buckwheat and Indian corn can
be used instead of rye, but they are harder to plow down.
The corn should be sown broadcast. Turnips and rape also
will make a complete cover on hard land. All of these crops
should be sown in July or August, or about six weeks before
a killing frost, and all of them will cover the ground com-
pletely before they are frozen down.

But these crops are makeshifts. When we use them, it is
because the finer, true cover-crop plants will not do well, for
some reason connected with the land which we wish to pro-
tect and improve. The idea is to build up the soil by the use
of these coarser plants to the point where the better ones will
do their best work. None of these coarse crops should be used
continuously, year after year.

The legumes, comprising all the clovers, vetch, cowpeas,
Canada peas, and common field beans, are the cover plants
which gather nitrogen, and at the same time give the protec-
tion and the organic matter supplied by the others. Common
field beans, Canada peas and cowpeas can be sown on coarser
lands than the clovers because their seeds are larger and a
catch is surer. Peas and clover mixed form a good combi-
nation. Clover with rye and the other non-legumes also is good.
Where clover and peas are used together, the peas will be killed
by frost, leaving the clover in possession.

If legumes are sown £x to eight weeks before killing frost,
the plants will grow thickly and cover the ground in fine shape.
Plenty of seed should be used, especially of cowpeas, of which
the Black and Whip-poor-will varieties are the best for the
North. All varieties do well in the South. Canada peas will
stand much cold, and will grow later into the fall than cow-
peas. All peas except Canada are hot-weather plants and will
make a rank growth even in dry weather.

27

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

Vetch should be sown from July i to Sept. i. It is pretty
sure to catch, is a legume, like peas and clover, and sown
then it will be knee-high and very thick in the fall. Heavy
fr©st does not kill it, and it will start again in the spring. This
mat plows down easily in the spring, even though it will have
made a good growth by April.

Mammoth, common red and alsike clover never reach their
best until they have occupied the land for more than a year.
It is true that they will make a fairly good growth by winter
if they are sown near the first of July, but, unless conditions
indicate that the orchard needs a rest for a year, other cover-crop
plants will be found to do the same work better.

Crimson clover, on the other hand, is an annual. It com-
pletes its natural growth in a year from the time of sowing,
and is not killed by the winter. When it is sown in July a good
growth will be made before winter sets in, and again in the
spring before time to plow, which will be as soon as the land is
dry enough. This gives more organic matter with which to
loosen up the soil, and gives a longer period from which the
plant can gather nitrogen from the air.

Crimson clover is the best clover plant we have for sections
south of the line of Trenton, N. J. The only limitations to
its use are those of its habits. It will not always catch in poor
or rough land, nor is its catching at all sure more than four
out of seven times north of the line named. Usually a certain
amount of soil-fertility building has to be done before it will
succeed. If you find that crimson clover will thrive and make
a thick cover on your land, you do not need to experiment with
other crops, as you have the best there is. Crimson clover
should be sown from July 15 to August 15 in the Middle At-
lantic states, earlier north, later south. In Pennsylvania and
north, peas or some other cover-crop plant should be sown with
it.

The following figures show the approximate quantities of
seed which are recommended per acre for cover crops in young
orchards. Old orchards will need less:

Barley 2 to 2 i bus. Cowpeas 2 bus.

Beans ijtoa bus. Millet i to i£ bus.

Buckwheat i bu. Oats 2 i to 3 bus.

Canada Peas i to 2 bus. Peas 2 to 3 bus.

Clover, crimson 8 to 16 Ibs. Rye i J to z\ bus.

Clover, red 6 to 12 Ibs. Turnip 3 to 4 Ibs.

Corn 2 J to 3 bus. Vetch i bus.

Common sense will direct how these crops be put in. Sow
the coarser seed as you would wheat or oats, the finer as
you do clover or timothy. Use a machine or drill, if possible,
as that way gets the seed on more evenly. One thing, however,
cover-crop seed should always be worked in with harrow if sown
broadcast. Peas are sometimes sown in rows, especially where
the "grain" is wanted, but this takes more work.

The following statements of the amount of plant food needed
by fruit trees are based on data given by Professor Bailey.
These figures give a clear idea of the quantity of food used by

28

HOW TO SUPPLY PLANT FOODS

a tree. The average is taken from the trees on one acre, planted
thirty-five feet apart, and over a period of twenty years be-
tween the thirteenth and thirty-third years of their age.

An average crop of apples from one tree removes, in round
numbers, eleven pounds of nitrogen, one pound of phosphoric
acid, and sixteen pounds of potash. The leaves with this crop
will contain ten pounds of nitrogen, three pounds of phosphoric
acid and ten pounds of potash. No figures are given for the
amount used in making new wood. The total for fruit and
leaves is twenty-one pounds of nitrogen, four pounds of phos-
phoric acid and twenty-six pounds of potash.

For an acre of trees, the amounts would be something like
1,887 pounds of nitrogen, 310 pounds of phosphoric acid and
1,895 pounds of potash. The total value of these plant foods
taken from an acre in twenty years is about $379. To restore
the potash alone would require about twenty-one tons of wood
ashes containing five per cent of potash. To restore the nitro-
gen would require more than sixteen tons of a fertilizer con-
taining five per cent of nitrogen, or more than five tons of
nitrate of soda containing fifteen per cent of nitrogen.

Another calculation by the same investigator shows the
amount of plant-food which you may expect the fruit and
the leaves to carry away in ten crops. The data follows:

Apples Leaves Total Value

Nitrogen 408 Ibs. 456 Ibs. 854 Ibs. $143 30

Phosphoric Acid 38 Ibs. 126 Ibs. 164 Ibs. n 50

Potash 728 Ibs. 441 Ibs. 1,169 Ibs. 5263

Total value $207 43

"One of the best sources of potash for orchards is wood
ashes," Prof. Bailey continues, "but this material is so often
weakened by leaching that it cannot be confidently recom-
mended. A good sample of urleached hardwood ashes should
contain from five to nine per cent potash, but some of the
commercial article does not analyze above two or three per
cent. Potash in this form has a trade value of four-and-a-
half cents per pound. To this value of potash in wood ashes
should also be added that of two per cent or less of phosphoric
acid, now worth six cents a pound, — but only if your land needs
phosphoric acid. If it does not need that element, you cannot
afford to buy it. Forty to fifty bushels to the acre is considered
to be a good dressing of wood ashes, if it has been kept dry.

"Muriate of potash is perhaps the best and most reliable
form in which to secure potash at the present time for fruits.
Commercial samples generally contain from 80 to 85 per cent
of muriate of potash, or about 50 per cent of actual potash.
Kainit is an impure muriate of potash, containing about 12
to 15 per cent potash.

"Sulfate of potash is also thought to be a good form in which
to buy potash. The commercial article analyzes 50 per cent or
less of actual potash. Slyvinit is a lower grade of potassium
fertilizer. Its value, like that of other materials mentioned,
should be reckoned upon the amount of potash present.

29

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

"Phosphoric acid may be obtained in the form of a high-
grade plain superphosphate (like dissolved South Carolina
rock) in bone compounds, and in Thomas slag. The plain
superphosphate contains about 15 to 18 per cent of phosphoric
acid. Two hundred to five hundred pounds per acre is a liberal
and very useful dressing for bearing orchards. The bone fer-
tilizers are always valuable. Those which are untreated give
up their phosphoric acid slowly, unless they are very finely
ground. Dissolved bone gives more immediate results."

Thomas phosphate or basic slag is especially valuable, be-
cause, in addition to its 15 per cent or more phosphoric acid
content, it contains about 40 per cent of lime. Some report
that it parts with its fertility very slowly, but this depends
upon how finely it is pulverized, and on the kind of soil to which
it is applied. If there is much acid in the soil, or slight saltiness,
this basic slag phosphoric acid will dissolve quickly and com-
pletely. It is especially good on marshy, loamy lands. It is
sold at a price which, considering the large amount of plant-
food elements it carries, gives cheap phosphoric acid.

Again from Professor Bailey: " Muriate of potash costs $40
and upward per ton, sulfate about $48, dissolved bone-black
about $25, ground bone about $30, kainit about $13, and
nitrate of soda 2^ cents per pound. These prices vary, of
course, with the composition or mechanical condition of the
materials.

"The average composition of unleached ashes in the market
is about as follows: Potash, 5.25 per cent; phosphoric acid,
1.70 per cent; lime, 34 per cent; magnesia, 3.40 per cent. The
average composition of kainit is 13.54 per cent potash, 1.15
per cent lime. The composition of sylvinit (which is known
as sulfate of potash in some quarters) is about 16 per cent
of potash, in the form of both muriate and sulfate, mostly the
former."

The best chemical source from which to get nitrogen is
nitrate of soda, which contains 9 to 15 per cent available nitro-
gen, or 180 to 300 pounds of available nitrogen in a ton. If
legumes are used as they ought to be, little nitrogen need be
supplied from any other source, and the nitrogen secured from
plants will cost about one-fifth of what it will otherwise.

When starting to fertilize an orchard, it is often well to use
a combination of potash and acid phosphate, with a cover
crop, and watch the trees carefully during the growing season.
If they show a light color, a small amount of nitrate of soda
can be used.

Suppose your soil has been fed a balanced ration, and now
is in good producing condition. If you want to feed trees in
such a soil, a fertilizer containing one and a half to two per
cent of nitrogen, two or three per cent of available phosphoric
acid and 10 to 12 per cent of potash, will give excellent results
when applied in quantities ranging from 400 to 600 pounds to
the acre. This means a complete, ready-mixed fertilizer. The
different elements can be purchased and applied separately
if that would be cheaper.

30

HOW TO SUPPLY PLANT FOODS

As a guide to the application of the proper materials sepa-
rately, we would say that the following proportions are about
right for a balanced tree diet: 100 pounds of nitrate of soda;
100 pounds of South Carolina rock; 200 pounds of ground
bone; 200 pounds of muriate of potash. The amount to be
used depends upon how much the trees need; for instance,
large old apple trees would require more than young apple
trees; peaches would require more than strawberries; run-
down orchards would need more than those well fed.

Apples in full bearing, and on loose soil, may receive as high
as 1,000 pounds of muriate of potash to the acre. A normal ap-
plication, however, would be from 150 to 300 pounds. In the
best orchards, growers believe that large applications of all
the elements, of course in the right proportions, will pay more
proportionately than the smaller ones. Generally there is a
limit to both the smallest and the largest quantities that
are profitable to apply, but don't use fertilizer blindly. You
will waste it if you do. Give the trees the elements they lack.
See that they have as much of each kind as they need. More
will do no good; less will reduce growth and production. Good
treatment all along the line is what brings good results.

To get the chemical fertilizer on the ground evenly is vitally
important. A drill is the thing to use if you do not want to
do it by hand. For the first few years at least it usually is best
to apply to each tree, by hand, the exact quantity which you
decide is needed. This should be scattered over a space twice
as wide as the branches cover. The old idea that roots go only
as far as limbs has been proven wrong time and again. Roots
will cover three times that diameter. If limbs are eight feet
long, you can depend on finding roots twenty or more feet
in every direction.

Barnyard manure seldom is good for bearing trees. It con-
tains too much nitrogen and causes sappy, out-of -season growth;
it likewise has too many weed seeds for comfort. It does good
work, however, around young trees, where it can be used as a
mulch. These need nitrogen with which to build a frame of
wood quickly. If it is used, apply it early in the spring, as soon
as the winter surplus of water has run off, and then sow a
cover crop early in July to take up excess nitrogen.

It is impossible to lay down rules for the best handling
of all orchards. Each piece of land must be studied sepa-
rately. After a bit one will know what is needed, and can base
his work on experience and observation. Keep your eye on
the individual trees. The first year give them what you think
they ought to have. If they respond, you have hit upon the
right thing. Bear in mind, though, that three-fourths of the
results of feeding trees appear in the second and third years
after the food materials are supplied.

Experiment with different combinations and amounts of
fertilizer. You can in this way learn what is best. Each tree
is an individual. Feed it according to its needs. After a num-
ber of years of intelligent treatment, all trees in an orchard
can be brought into uniform condition, so the whole orchard

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

may be treated in the same way, simplifying the work. Gen-
erally it is best to apply each food separately. Mixing is not
needed; unless you can buy complete fertilizer that is made
exactly as you want, mixing will not pay.

When the sod-mulch system is in use, careful watching of
trees and fruit to see what food is needed is doubly necessary.
Potash generally has to be supplied most liberally in chemical
(or commercial) form. The source of food on which the main
dependence is placed, with this system, is the dead grass that
is mowed and left on the land. How much of each food this
contains it is impossible to tell except from the behavior
of trees. What this grass does not supply must be given in
another form.

Whatever plan is followed regularly, it sometimes pays to
change for a year or two. A cultivated crop such as potatoes
or tomatoes is good, and besides, will pay well. Then a sod-
mulched orchard may need a stimulant. Plow it up and cul-
tivate for a season. Turn down a good heavy crop of a legume.
This, together with the regular sod turned under, will change
the soil conditions and generally will arouse the trees.

Double crops are those grown between trees for a harvest.
They may or may not add fertility to the soil — usually they
consume great quantities of plant food which must be replaced
from outside sources. Yet they pay well when handled right.
Tomatoes, strawberries, potatoes, asparagus, beans and melons
are the ones usually the best to grow.

From the fertilizing point of view, which is half of all that
is to be considered in the use of double crops and orchard
filler, the thing hinges on just this: Don't try to take more
out of your soil than you put in, and put back into the soil as
much as or more than you take out. Outside of these limits,
the more crops the better. In growing crops between trees,
watch the trees. Remember you are growing the trees, not
the secondary crop. Keep the trees growing fast, and healthy
in every way. Supply food and moisture for everything that
grows on the land.

Double crops undoubtedly complicate the situation a great
deal, as the orchardist must study the needs of his other crops
in the same way as he studies the needs of his trees. Bear in
mind that the profit is the amount between the value of the
crop and the cost of the extra labor and of the plant-food you
have to supply. Do not rob the trees. Burn that on a large
sign, stick the sign in your orchard where you can see it all
the time; then go ahead and raise inter-crops until the trees
begin to bear nicely.

SUMMARY

Crops that pay big profits are unnaturally heavy crops, and
to get them we must feed the trees.

Soil itself never is food for trees — it merely carries plant
food — and it must be finely and deeply pulverized, loosened,
and filled with decaying vegetable matter before roots can
absorb the plant food present.

CULTIVATION AND MULCHING

"Decay" is mostly the action of bacteria.

Lime is not a plant food to any extent, but is badly needed
by trees, to help them use plant food and to help put the soil
in good physical shape.

Make your soil fine and loose and loamy before you add
fertilizer and you will not need to add so much.

No two pieces of land are alike in plant-food needs. Learn
to know what elements are lacking, and supply them in right
proportions. Do not waste fertilizer by blind applications.

Potash, nitrogen and phosphoric acid are the plant foods
that have to be supplied. Nitrogen usually is best gotten
through leguminous cover crops. Potash and phosphorus
have to be supplied in chemical form.

Nitrogen is the growing material, making wood, and size
in fruit; potash goes into fruit largely, making flavor and
color; phosphoric acid goes into wood and seeds, but only a
fifth as much of it is used as of potash.

Cover crops disintegrate and pulverize soil, add to it organic
matter, prevent plant food from leaching and (the legumes)
add nitrogen. The kind to use depends on your locality and
your soil.

Get plant foods on the ground evenly, over a space at least
twice as wide as the branches cover, and apply it at the right
season.

Double crops pay, but you must supply plant food and
moisture for everything that grows on the land. Do not rob the
trees.

Cultivation, Mulching and Other
Orchard Treatment

WHY should we use time and money in "fooling with the
dirt" around trees? Before we came to this world there
was fruit which grew without a bit of care. Why not
adopt those methods now?

The answer is simple: We do not cultivate to kill weeds,
nor mulch to keep frost out. We do this work to increase the
number of bushels or boxes or baskets or carloads of fruit;
to better its size, texture, keeping qualities, its color and its
taste, and to make the trees more vigorous. We are not satis-
fied with either the kind of apples our grandfathers grew, or
the quantity they produced.

To obtain these results, it is necessary to save moisture, to
promote drainage, to change insoluble plant-food elements
into available plant food, to improve the texture of the earth
(make it fine, and thus give roots a better chance to feed, mix
it with dead vegetable matter, and so subdue it more and more),
to increase the depth of useful soil, to make the temperature
of the soil average higher and have less range, to prevent

33

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

winter damage to trees, to keep plant-food from leaching away,
to prevent gullying and surface washing, to produce con-
ditions under which the soil will dry off and either warm up
sooner, or stay cold longer, as desired, in the spring, to supply
plant-food, to help friendly bacteria grow and increase, and to
destroy unfriendly bacteria, insects, fungi, weeds and animals.

Anything that will help accomplish these things is good,
but the best methods are those which do it with the least
trouble and expense in proportion to each dollar's worth of
fruit grown. No one procedure is best all the time. Each
different process will secure partly some of the objects; usually
it will be found that the program can be varied to advantage.
What to do depends upon the trees, weather, soil, location,
pocket-book, facilities, the time at command, and the purpose
for which the fruit is wanted.

All methods are related but do not overlap. With a certain
purpose in view, you often can start with one method, and carry
on or finish the work better and at less expense by a different
process. The most successful fruit-growers do not have any
one set system for their work. They recognize that all orchard
processes have their uses, and that there is little choice of what
to do in any situation, when things are understood and the
best way is wanted.

Mulching with grass grown in the orchard, mulching with
straw and other materials brought into the orchard, growing
and turning down cover crops, cultivating with plows, har-
rows, dynamite and underdrains, are the means we have of
giving culture to orchard land.

Before trees are planted, the ground should be subdued
thoroughly. "Subdued" is exactly the word to use. The treat-
ment should be whatever is needed to accomplish that result.
Usually it is best to first grow one or two cultivated crops on
the land. This will show the wet spots, the hard ones, the
places where subsoil comes close to the surface, and acquaint
you with every corner. You then can drain or do anything
else needed without interfering with the trees and without
having the trees interfere with the work.

In the discussion of drainage, moisture, and feeding trees,
we explain the essence of orchard culture. As we have said,
it is necessary to break up the subsoil, whether there is hard-
pan or not. Subsoil plowing will do this in preparing the land
at first while the trees are young. Underdrainage will help
constantly to loosen the soil, and to keep it loose. The dyna-
mite method usually is the cheapest at any time, and it is
the only way by which the work can be done thoroughly after
the trees have been in three or four years.

How much dynamite to use, what kind, how deep and
how far apart the holes should be, are details which are decided
by simple experiments in the kind of soil to be loosened. Dy-
namite manufacturers will supply all the information needed.
They have issued several practical handbooks for distribution.
Test out your soil by trying three or four pairs of holes 30,
36 and 42 inches deep, charged with third, half and whole

34

Left: Good planting plan for peach orchard. Right: Properly headed peach tree.

West Virginia Orchard with excellent air-drainage. This orchard worth $1,200 an acre.

Apple trees planted 20 x 20 feet. At eleven years old they are too close

Fill chicken yards with plum and cherry trees. Trees will thrive.

35

Eighteen hundred apples were thinned trom this tree in June — increasing yield.

Left: Dwarf pear tree trained to wall. Right: Dwarf apple trees trained in flat form.

Old pear trees that have yielded $23 worth of fruit a season for years.
36

CULTIVATION AND MULCHING

sticks. Shoot and examine carefully. The ground should not
blow out, but should be loosened six or eight feet on each side
of the charge.

Dynamite is the thing with which to dig holes for new
trees, to break up the whole soil three or four feet deep every
few years, and to help renovate old orchards, because it will
do these things more cheaply and better than they can be done
by any other means. If you have fruit trees which seem to
be standing still and which do not bear, no matter how big
they are, properly explode a charge in the soil around or between
them, and the trees will likely get to work. In a bearing orchard,
a proper charge midway between trees is always safe and is
generally very effective.

In soil work with dynamite, the proper charge will heave
the ground over a space from six to twelve feet in diameter,
and as a by-product kill all insects and grubs. Under certain
instances tree holes should have the dirt blown out, but it
is generally best to merely loosen it up. A big shovel will
sink down to where the tree should go at one motion if the
ground has been heaved. Ditching in heavy, wet land can be
done sometimes to advantage with dynamite. In this work
heavier charges are placed close enough together to blow out
the dirt.

After you have torn up the soil, harrow and roll it repeatedly.
Make the upper six or eight inches as fine as garden soil. This
will take time and work, but will save both in the next five
years. If orchard land is cared for properly in its early stages,
no heavy plowing will be needed later. There should be plenty
of vegetable matter in the soil when the trees are planted.
It is not necessary to turn furrows in plowing orchard land.
Cutaway or disc harrows are better than landside plows.
Mix the soil — that's the thing. Stir it up. After you have the
work started, any kind of harrow, cultivator or drag will do
good work.

After plowing, be sure to get the air-spaces between furrows
entirely filled. Air is needed in the soil, but never in larger
quantity than a ""chunk" the size of a pin-head at one place.
Each cubic inch of soil should have several hundreds of these.
Use rollers, clod-crushers, or soil-packers after plowing, until
you are certain there are no big air-spaces a few inches under
the surface.

How cultivation feeds trees and saves moisture has been
explained already, but here are more details. Young orchards
of any kind always should be cultivated clean, from spring
until in July. Plow or tear up the soil as soon as ground is
dry enough to work, harrow after every rain, and every week
or ten days until it is time to sow the cover crop, or to mulch
for winter.

Keep young trees hustling. They have to build a big frame
on which to carry their crops, and they have only a few years
to build it in. Make them grow all they can every year, just
so they stop in time to ripen their wood before frost. Young
trees can keep on growing with safety a month or six weeks

37

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

longer than bearing trees. The cultivation keeps them sup-
plied with available plant-food and with sufficient moisture.
Start cultivation of apples before the buds even swell in spring.
See that trees are hoed around. A half-penny's worth of work
will do wonders for your young trees. This early cultivation
is most important and we always think that it is worth more
than twice the work done a month later.

As for the depth to work, go deep while you can. The
first or second working each spring should reach a foot below
the surface in all the space not occupied by roots. Later bar-
rowings need go only three inches deep, and two inches will
do. Where roots are, and close up under the trees, four inches
in as deep as the ground should be worked. But remember
this working so often directly under the branches of a tree is
of far less value, either in conserving moisture or in feeding
that tree, than working the space from the ends of the branches
out to the next tree, because three-fourths of the feeding roots
are beyond the branch tips.

Never cut off a valuable limb to get under it with team and
tools. Better by all means depend on harrows lapping over
there. Bearing orchards should be worked the first time in
spring six or eight inches deep, if they have been used to that
depth all their lives. If they have been in sod, tear up only
four inches of soil, because many roots will be even higher than
that. One of the values of cultivation lies in making the roots
go deeper, keeping them away from the dry, hot and cold sur-
face, and down where they can feed all the time.

Some of the pictures here show bearing trees which have no
space at all under the limbs. There are great advantanges in
this system when it comes to spraying and picking. But cul-
tivation under such trees is impossible, and the way to handle
them is to cover the ground under the limbs six to eighteen
inches deep with hay or straw every year. When trees are
first planted, this mulching for three or four feet around each
is the best thing that can be done.

Care must be taken to move the mulch back about a foot
from the tree before every winter to guard against damage
by mice, and in no case should the mulch be closer than six
inches to the trunk, summer or winter. The ground should
be heaped up slightly about the trees, too. Mice will not cross
this open space. This mulch will save the moisture under it; the
trees can be fed just the same, and in many ways it is better
to mulch under the limbs and cultivate up to the mulch than
to try to work all the surface. In -southern Ohio can be seen
a practice of gathering weeds and trash of all sorts and hauling
it into the orchard around the trees. Rome Beauty, York
Imperial, and other similar apples respond wonderfully to this
treatment.

The sod-mulch system of orcharding is this same idea car-
ried further. The whole surface of the ground is covered with
a stiff, thrifty sod of blue grass, timothy, red top and clover,
or with almost any permanent grass that will ^make hay. A
legume helps in supplying nitrogen. Then this is kept mowed

38

CULTIVATION AND MULCHING

down as often as it seems worth while, beginning in the spring
as soon as the weather gets dry. Some orchardists who use
this system mow as often as the machine will catch the grass,
as with a lawn, and leave the grass where it falls. Others mow
less frequently, allowing the grass to get a foot or so high each
time. Sometimes two mowings a season are enough; again,
four will be needed. Cut in this way, the grass will not use
so much water, and will provide a continual shade that to a
certain extent has the same effect as a mulch of dust.

No matter how often mowing is done, half or two-thirds
of the green hay ought to be raked up and spread under the
trees and over a few feet beyond branch tips. The vital point
in the success of sod- mulch orcharding is: Not a blade of grass
is to be removed from the orchard. If there is too much to go
under the trees, say more than enough to make a mulch eigh-
teen inches deep, the surplus may be left over the center spaces,
the layer getting thinner toward the middle. Some of the
largest and highest-colored apples and pears and plums seen
in the markets or shows come from sod-mulched orchards.
Peaches and dwarf pears almost invariably fail in sod mulch.
They must be cultivated.

The sod-mulch system will produce wonderful results on
apples and pears in the hands of growers who will do it right,
where there is enough rainfall. Sod-mulched trees usually
do not make as much growth as those which are cultivated.
For this reason all young trees should be cultivated. Often
bearing trees are big enough, anyhow, and on them extra
growth simply means extra pruning and heading back to keep
them low enough.

A net return of $38 more from a cultivated apple orchard
than from a sod-mulched orchard adjoining it was noted in
a thorough test in New York, where the conditions were iden-
tical; yet this proves nothing more than that in this case the
sod was not a good thing. In this experiment, the apples from
cultivated trees were not colored so well as those from trees
in sod; but they averaged larger, had a better flavor, and kept
better late in winter.

Rocky soils sometimes are fine for fruit, but they cannot
be worked at all except with dynamite. On such places get a
good sod, mow it regularly at the right time, mulch the trees
with the hay, add some potash, and your orchard will be a
great success with little work. Steep places can be treated
in the same way; but terracing, or tearing up and leaving alter-
nate strips of sod every year, working half the ground each
season, often will produce bigger crops and still prevent wash-
ing.

Do not pasture your orchard. Bearing trees will pay you
more than $250 to the acre if you allow them to, but they will
not if they are mistreated. Be satisfied with that return and
do not try to get another crop. Remember that the droppings
of animals will not return a tenth of what the animals take
from the soil. The same rule applies to the usually double
crop between trees. The yield of wool, mutton, beef, pork,

39

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

hay, grain, etc., from an acre of orchard could not possibly
be worth more than a fraction of the value of a full fruit crop;
yet to raise any of these in the orchard will reduce the value
of the fruit crop to only one-fifth or even less of what it would
have been without them. Never think of removing a non-
cultivated crop from between rows of fruit trees.

Apples, pears, cherries, and plums, in light sandy soil, espe-
cially where rainfall in the growing season sometimes is short,
always are best clean-cultivated. Peaches and dwarf pears, in
any soil, always should be cultivated well. To facilitate this,
larger growing trees may be headed high enough at the
trunk so that limbs will clear the team, and the limbs of smaller
trees will not project far enough to interfere. Keep harrows
and plows away from trunks of trees. Turn plows out when
near trees on all sides. Finish this space with a hand hoe if
it needs to be cultivated. Use center-trace harness whenever
possible; this is made by putting the doubletree across the
collars in front, and hitching by one chain or rope from the
center of the doubletree directly to the plow or harrow.

Cover all the surface in harrowing, except that little space
around tree trunks. Harrow in every direction if you can. In
all cultivation try to keep the surface even and level. Allow
no dead furrows or ridges. Even on hillsides, where there is
a furrow next to the sod strip, harrow or drag this shut soon.

In case severe economy is necessary, or where help is scarce,
a combination of the clean cultivation and the mulch methods
can be used. Plow a narrow strip alongside each row of trees.
Cultivate this and cover the rest with sod, and mow. A man
by the name of Hitchings, in New York, uses this method en-
tirely, in preference to any other treatment he could give his
orchard, and he is certainly very successful.

Up to the time trees are six or seven years old, their roots
will not occupy all the space, and cultivated double crops can
be used. Even when filler trees are planted as close as fifteen
or twenty feet, the ground between can be made to yield a
profit while the trees are small; and at the same time, if proper
fertilizers are supplied, the orchards will be benefited by cul-
tivation given to these double crops.

Some of the best business farmers of the country say it
costs entirely too much to bring an orchard into bearing with-
out between-tree crops. When a man wants to start an orchard
and does not have the money, he often can do it by growing
four or five crops of strawberries, tomatoes, asparagus, or
something similar between his trees. Do not plant potatoes,
or any crop requiring digging after August i, as this will
act the same as late cultivation and force fall growth of trees.
The May and June cultivation given these crops is just the thing
required by young trees. Markets are waiting for these pro-
ducts. All that is required is to study how to pack them, and
make proper arrangements for selling them. We advise sowing
a cover crop with any intercrop, at the last cultivation, and
let it come on. Rye or rye and vetch are good, and will make
a cover crop to carry through fall and winter.

40

Pear trees too thick. Cut three-fourths of head off alternate trees each year.

How to head young peach trees. Cut branches back to stubs, and stem off to 12 inches.

Low, open-headed apple tree when young, and also when loaded with fruit.

41

Apple trees are splendid on lawn — left. Dwarf tree in commercial orchard — right.

How NOT to prune. Wrong season, stubs left, low limbs cut off, — tree butchery.

Five-year trees that are bearing from 100 to 250 apples each — three times too many.

42

CULTIVATION AND MULCHING

Cultivation, like every other good thing, is good in its place,
and bad when out of its place. All fruit trees should — and
will, if conditions are normal — cease growth about July i. Later
growth will prevent fruit from ripening, and will send the tree
into winter with sappy wood and buds. Now, when trees have
not ripened as they should, buds and twigs are hurt by freez-
ing to an extent seldom appreciated. We cannot always see
this damage. Few realize that it ever is done. But a crop
often is frozen one or two years ahead, and when we do not
get fruit we say that something is wrong, yet fail to learn
what that something is.

Cultivation must stop not later than August i in young
orchards, and three or four weeks earlier in bearing orchards.
A cover crop that will use up moisture and nitrogen should be
sown, to make sure that ripening begins. There are other
reasons for cover crops; but, from the cultural standpoint,
this is most important. Allowing the ground to bake might
accomplish the ripening, too, but it would produce bad effects
as well. To aid ripening, mulches sometimes may be pulled back
from trees in August. This applies particularly to young trees.

When to cultivate, when to mulch, and when to use sod,
depends entirely upon the conditions. Each will produce its
own effects. The grower must decide what methods are best —
must decide what he wants to do with his trees, then use the
means that produce that result. Consider every effect of what
you are going to do. For instance, sod will ripen wood and
fruit weeks earlier than cultivation, in the same way that a
too-early cover crop will, by using up the moisture and nitro-
gen. Again, cultivation will destroy mice and insects; and
still again, with mulch, fire always must be guarded against,
particularly near railroads, woods and houses. Fire almost
surely would kill the trees. There are dozens of points to con-
sider. Study all, and use the methods best suited to your condi-
tions, but modify them or change them entirely if this will
produce better results.

SUMMARY

We do not cultivate to kill weeds nor mulch to keep frost
out. We do these things to save moisture; to promote drainage;
to change insoluble plant-food elements into available plant
food; to improve the texture of the earth; to mix dead vegetable
matter in the soil; to increase the depth of useful soil; to make
the temperature of the soil average higher and have less range;
to prevent winter damage to trees; to keep plant food from
leaching away; to produce conditions under which soil will
warm up sooner or stay colder longer, as desired, in the spring;
to supply plant food; to help friendly bacteria grow and increase;
to destroy unfriendly bacteria, insects, fungi and animals.

Mulching with straw and hay, growing and turning down
cover crops and cultivating with plows, harrows, dynamite,
and underdraining are the means we have of giving culture to
orchard land.

43

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

Before trees are planted, the soil should be "subdued" thor-
oughly.

Dynamite tree holes, also break up hard pan and subsoil
with dynamite, whenever possible.

Mix the soil — that's the thing. Stir it up.

Get rid of all large air-spaces a few inches down.

Begin cultivation of young trees as early in spring as possible.
A penny's worth of work done in March or April is worth a
nickel's worth in June.

Cover ground for a few feet about young trees with a heavy
mulch. Leave a six- to twelve-inch space about the trunks (and
heap up soil slightly) as a guard against mice.

Keep young trees hustling till time to bear, then make them
yield without growing much excess wood.

Always cease cultivation in time to allow trees to ripen
wood thoroughly before frost.

When done right, the sod-mulch system is good where there
is plenty of rainfall.

No farmer will think of raising an orchard without growing
between-tree crops that will pay from the start.

Study your trees and give them the treatment that they
ought to have for best results. That is what orchard culture
means, no matter what the methods used to effect the desired
purposes.

Jack Frost

TO give this old gentleman the credit due him, it must be
admitted that his children — cool and cold weather — put
quality into fruit. Northern sections and higher eleva-
tions produce better fruit than southern sections and low
regions; and those parts of the world where the nights are cool
and days not too hot are famous for the quality of their fruit.

Take advantage of this fact whenever it is possible. If there
is a choice, put your trees on high land for this reason, although
there are others. Certain varieties thrive down low, but within
the latitude adapted to any one kind the higher it is grown
the better it will taste and keep. Take the York Imperial
Apple, for instance. Grown below an altitude of three hundred
feet in Pennsylvania, it is large, bright red, handsome, pithy,
tasteless, and dry; grown at eight hundred feet, it is small,
red-and-yellow striped, crisp, juicy, rich and "just fine." The
same applies to variations North and South.

In this connection, we should pause and consider elevation.
Of course, the higher we get, the less total amount of heat there
is in a season. High lands usually have cooler nights than low
lands, and the warm part of the day generally is shorter. The
elevation at which the total of heat in a season falls below the
requirements for growing and ripening a fruit cannot be given
in definite figures that apply to all sections, because, as we go
south, that line goes higher.

44

FROST DAMAGE TO ORCHARDS

About every mile further south makes as much difference
in the season temperature as about eight feet of elevation. That
is, a point a mile south of you will have to be eight feet higher
than your position to have exactly the same conditions; a
point a hundred miles south will have to be eight hundred feet
higher. The rule is that every degree of latitude equals five
hundred feet of elevation.

Frost causes an immense amount of damage when not
guarded against, however, by freezing blossoms, by freezing
fruit before it is fully colored in the fall, by freezing buds, and
by stunting and killing trees. A great deal of this damage is
preventable by taking advantage of certain natural agencies,
or by artificial means. It is not necessary to lose every second
or third crop from frost. Even tender fruits, like peaches, can
be made to yield every year by applying modern knowledge
of preventing frost damage. The degree of cold which hurts
fruit at various stages of growth has been learned pretty defi-
nitely. It is not always 32 degrees, the water-freezing point.

Of course, some kinds of fruit trees, buds and blossoms are
damaged more easily than others. Dormant peach buds will
stand ten or fifteen degrees below zero, some varieties more,
others less. When peach buds have swollen the least bit, zero
usually will kill them; when showing pink they can stand
fifteen degrees above zero; when newly opened twenty-six
degrees is the limit. When petals are falling, twenty-eight
degrees will damage them slightly, and when petals are off they
cannot stand much below thirty degrees. After that, thirty-
two is the danger point.

Apple twigs, and buds, if ripened right, will stand almost
any cold. Sixty below zero has been known to kill some vari-
eties, but little fear need be felt for any apple tree— when
it goes into winter in right shape. We have explained this sub-
ject in the chapter on cultivation. Apple blossoms showing
pink will stand twenty degrees above; full open, twenty-six
degrees; with falling petals, twenty-eight or thirty degrees.
Pears are about the same as apples. Cherries and plums are
slightly more tender; they might need two degrees more warmth,
— but sometimes their blossoms come through black frosts
with no apparent harm. Grape buds seldom will stand tem-
perature colder than thirty-one degrees.

A point to remember is that blossoms may not show any
frosting, yet still may be damaged enough to prevent their
setting perfect fruit. Gnarly, crooked, small and bitter fruit
is not always the result of insufficient pollination or damage
by insects or fungi. It may have been caused by frosts in spring
or winter.

The chief means we can make use of to prevent any and
all of this frost damage are these: Locate within a few miles of
a considerable body of water; locate on a slope, a bench or a
hill-top from which air can drain away into lower land; avoid
table-lands, plains, and, above all, pockets or valley floors;
choose land facing the north or east rather than that facing
south or west; cultivate so that trees will be late in starting to

45

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

grow and bloom in the spring, and early to ripen wood and
fruit in the fall; plan or make use of windbreaks of other kinds
of trees, and use smoke and moisture for protection when
frost comes at critical times.

The problem of location already is solved for the great
majority of growers and would-be growers. If you own a farm,
that is the place on which to grow your fruit. The fact that
you have it and know the soil gives you a greater advantage
than you can secure by changing, unless you now are in a poor
location for fruit, and can get a good price for your land. If
this is the case, move into a section that is known to be good
for fruit and as near the big markets as you can get. If you
cannot change, you can make yourself practically safe from
frost by wise planning and a little work.

Water heats up and grows cold more slowly than earth.
When the sun beats down warmly during winter and early
spring days, water stays cold, while land gets warm. Later,
water gets warm too, but, unlike the land, it stays warm, and
does not cool off every frosty night. And air always is of about
the same temperature as the substance it rests on.

Now, both freezing of blossoms and "sun scald" (which is
only freezing of sappy growth) would be unknown if there
were no higher temperature to start growth, followed by low
temperature that freezes it. To connect protection from frost
with bodies of water, therefore, we have only to remember
that warm air rises over cold air whenever it has a chance.
During warm days in winter and spring, cold air from over
water flows up into the vacant space left over land by warm
air rising. This prevents trees from starting growth as soon
as they would otherwise.

Then later, when spring has come in earnest and the leaves
and blossoms are out, water and land both get warm in the
daytime but along comes a frost at night and cools off both
the land and its air. This cold air flows down to the water, to
take the place of the warmer air which rises from the water
and flows back over the land — and over the tender blossoms.

That, however, is not quite the whole science of water-
protection from frost. The worst frosts come when the air is
dry. If there is much fog, or vapor, or moisture, in the air,
freezing will be slight or entirely absent. An example of this
is seen in the fact that zero on the Atlantic coast, where the
atmosphere is moist, actually is felt more — seems colder, and
is colder — than twenty degrees below in Manitoba or Colorado,
where the air is much drier.

Any water air will be damper than land air, so frost will not
freeze so hard nor so quickly near bodies of water as the same
degree of cold will freeze farther inland. If moisture is pres-
ent in the air, from a shower, from ponds, ditches, spraying,
or watering, it will act to prevent freezing. In irrigated sec-
tions, a large amount of protection from frost can be had by
turning on the water, and so filling the air with moisture.
Where there are only a few plants or trees, or a garden, a
thorough sprinkling or wetting is the best possible protection

46

Left: Spreading peach trees require a little higher head than others. Right: A zinc tag
on tree, on which is complete record of that tree's history.

Good pruning tools. Note wide open hand shears, and pole pruner — both double action.

47

Entirely too thick 31 peaches here, and 15 are enough Should be 4 inches apart.

Evergreen windbreak at a sod-mulched orchard, proper distance between break and trees

Thinning pears and apples, also nipping tips of pear tree. June.
48

FROST DAMAGE TO ORCHARDS

against frost, and this often is a most practicable method.
One quart of water evaporated into the air, in a space eighty
feet square will protect against frost as much as raising the
temperature ten degrees.

A slope which faces the water usually is better than one
exposed the other way. The prevailing strong winds, however,
have something to do with this, as well as sun and soil. South
and west slopes are not so good as others, except for quinces
and grapes, so far as the frost problem is concerned. A body
of water will influence the temperature to a useful extent up
to a distance of from five to fifteen miles. No difficulty will
be had in getting local information on this point, and one
season's acquaintance with conditions will tell the story pretty
well.

As the entire country from Ontario south is adapted to some
or all of the fruits, there are ten times as many inland acres
as there are of those under the protection of bodies of water.
Over all this area other things must be relied on to control
frost trouble. The first of these is air drainage — next to right
varieties, moisture, fertility and pruning, the most important
requisite for success with fruit.

The greatest danger to blossoms from frost comes during
still nights. Frosts seldom come when a wind blows, because,
when it is in motion, all the air is mixed together and its tem-
perature is uniform throughout. After there has been enough
spring warmth to produce bloom, nearly always enough will
be stored up in that neighborhood to keep the temperature
of all the atmosphere above the danger point if it is distributed
properly by air movement or wind. Air-drainage is air-move-
ment by gravity when the wind is not blowing.

Air-drainage, and freezing at blossom-time, depend on
comparative height, not on distance above sea-level. It does not
take much slope or drop to do the work, although several hun-
dred feet will do no harm. Often a rise of ten feet will mark
the line between frost and safety, and places with a difference
of ten feet in elevation sometimes will show a difference of
ten degrees in temperature.

Warm air rises, just as steam does. Cold air sinks, just as
water runs down hill. Every little obstruction, like a few feet
of roll in the surface, a hedge or windbreak, even the dirt
thrown out of a ditch, will cause a deflection in the downward
flow of cold air, and may protect or doom the plants in an area
alongside of it. The shoulder of a hill, a hollow or a valley
will direct air-currents.

When it strikes an obstruction in its flow, air bounds quite
a distance away from the earth, and does not come down again
for rods. The flow of air to the sides is deflected in the same
manner. We can only hint here at the influences of various
combinations of hills, bluffs, draws, woods, drops and land-
angles. No rules can be given for this. By studying the situ-
ation you nearly always can tell where the flows of cold air
will be. When the sun goes down, the earth and air cool rapidly.
If it is a still night, the natural or gravity movement of the

49

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

air will send the frosty atmosphere down, down, down, to
lower levels, by any open paths it can find.

Of course the exposed top of a mountain is likely to be
affected by any frost in the air on still nights, but here, if any-
where, there is likely to be a breeze to drive the frost away.
The sides of a hill, whether benched or sloping, usually will
be free from frost when the bottom below is hoary. Low flats
or pockets of land are frost traps, as they catch and hold the
cold air that drains from the land above. If a valley is long,
with an even fall and few obstructions, there may be a good
flow of air along its floor. This will prevent frost. In such
places the very finest lands for fruits are found, because of
their advantages in soil, good roads, level land, etc.

Air drainage of any piece of land always is much more
important than its exposure. Conditions on a northern or
eastern slope will delay blossoming-time a few days; but if
there is no lower-lying land into which the frosty air of spring
nights can drain, blossoms will freeze every year or two. For
this reason, certain tracts of land otherwise valuable are nearly
worthless for fruit; and to plant an orchard on them invites
failure, or at least an immense amount of work in fighting
frost every year. You would better protect your trees against
the frost for all time when you plant them.

Get definite information about frost, if possible. During
blooming-time in the spring before you plant trees, put ther-
mometers a few feet from the ground, on stakes, one down in
the lowest pocket on your place, another a little higher up,
and still others at every twenty or thirty feet rise all the way
up the slope. By watching these thermometers carefully every
hour or two during a couple of nights when frost threatens,
you will get all the information needed, and know the strips
of land to avoid because of frost. Where such a test cannot
be made, carefully observe the lay of the land before planting
any trees.

The relation of windbreaks to frost damage is mixed. Many
times they prevent freezing, but they sometimes are the direct
cause of it. For this purpose we can class a strip of woods as
a windbreak. The flow of air-currents must be studied to
understand the situation. When cold air flows from higher
land on a still night, and strikes a thick windbreak, it rises over
the tree tops and flows on to the middle of the orchard before
coming down among the fruit trees. This will cause a strip
several rods wide in the lee of the break to become badly
frozen, because here there will be a dead-air space. The break
forms a pocket of still air which is exactly like the frost trap
formed by the hills in the bottom down below.

If the break had been thinner, really "breaking" the force
of the wind, and not altogether stopping its motion, there
would have been no frost alongside of it, while the decided
benefit of deflecting the cold air over the top of the orchard
trees would be as great as ever. See that a piece of woods
next to your orchard does not subject some of your trees to
frost injury.

50

FROST DAMAGE TO ORCHARDS

Orchard heating has been brought to a thoroughly efficient
state during the last few years, in Colorado and the Pacific
coast fruit-belts. It is a recognized feature of orchard culture
there, and is included in plans of work to be done on the orchards
just the same as are pruning and spraying.

Certain situations here and there throughout the country
are so exceptionally favorable for fruit in other ways that
planting in them is advisable, even though the situation is
known to be frosty; or an orchard may be already located
where blossoms are often frozen; or once or twice in a lifetime
an exceptionally heavy frost may in blossoming-time visit an
orchard that is safe all other years. In such cases artificial
heating will save a great deal more money than it costs.

Sometime along in April or May there will be a few days
of warm weather, with south winds and showers that will
start buds and bloom. Then, in a few hours, the wind will
shift to the north or west and blow the clouds away. A clear
night and a bright morning will follow, but this is just when
to look for the worst frosts. Have several thermometers here
and there in the orchard and near your house, about six feet
from the ground. Be sure your thermometers register cor-
rectly— some don't. When danger threatens, watch the ther-
mometers carefully, especially from midnight till sunrise.
Start frost fighting while the thermometers read a couple of
degrees above the danger point.

The Irishman said it wasn't the fall that hurt him, but
hitting the ground. So, it is not the freezing so much as the
quick thawing afterward which causes the damage to blos-
soms. If we can get something to prevent this quick warming
up, and make our frozen flowers thaw out gradually, we can
reduce the final damage 75 per cent. Clouds will do this, and so
will artificial clouds — smoke for instance — and smoke is just the
thing wanted for other reasons.

Every one has noticed that the weather never gets very
cold when the sky is overcast with clouds. We might say safely
that frost never comes when there are low, thick clouds. Ob-
servation of this fact led orchardists long ago to adopt smudg-
ing as a frost preventive. The smoke makes a blanket
which shuts out colder air from above during the night, then
shields frost-bitten blossoms from the sun's rays in the morn-
ing, and allows time to warm up slowly.

Some growers have ready piles of wet brush, straw and
leaves about the edges and throughout the orchard where
the fires will not harm the trees. Sometimes oil is poured on
these materials, but they should be kept as full of water as they
can be and yet burn. When the temperature goes down near
the danger point these piles are lighted. The moisture in the
fuel is valuable in three ways — by increasing the volume of
smoke, which covers the orchard, by loading the atmosphere
with water, thus lowering the danger point, and by making
the fuel burn more slowly and last longer.

Sometimes, when the frost danger is slight, a burning pile
of wet straw on a sled or wagon hauled here and there through

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

the orchard will save much fruit. Elevate the material on
screen wire and build the fire on a layer of earth in the bed
under it. Where the heating has to be done for several nights
in succession a mixture of tar, straw and sawdust will be found
good. The ingenuity of the man whose crop is threatened
can save him more dollars in this situation than in almost
any other which comes up. Things have to be done quickly,
and for every hour of time there are four hours' work.

Orchard heaters, made of sheet iron, in various forms,
which burn coal, wood, or oil, always should be installed if
heating has to be done each year. The study of heating by
this method would make a book in itself. Get the catalogues
of heater manufacturers, compare their products, then buy
fifty or sixty or eighty heaters (one hundred or more if oil
heaters) for every acre you have to protect. Get more heaters
than you ever will need in one night. Put all the heaters in
position long before the time they will be needed. Have fuel
and everything else ready, then you can make your work effect-
ual. Tanks, sheds, fuel, buckets, torches, etc., also are needed.
It will cost from $500 to $800 to install and run for one year
a heating equipment for ten acres.

A final word on artificial heating is this: With half-hearted
preparation you cannot save the crop, and you will be out
both the value of the fruit lost and the cost of the attempt
to save it. Remember that you cannot raise the temperature
of the air much by supplying actual heat — because, however
hot the fire is, the heat from it will rush up above the trees
and will be replaced by colder air pushing in from the sides.

Ninety-five per cent of the influence you can exert on the
temperature will come from supplying moisture to the air, which
lowers the danger point, and from covering your trees with
dense smoke, thus preventing quick thawing. These two pro-
cesses will accomplish the purpose if given a chance, but do
not imagine that you are "warming all out-of-doors," as a great
many people say. In some parts of the West a light spraying
of water while fires are burning helps to protect trees. Spray-
ing trees with whitewash in winter helps protect trees against
sun scald, winter damage and spring frosts.

The mulching of trees while snow still is on the ground,
to delay blossoming, is advised sometimes. A mulch that is
thick enough will keep the ground frozen as long as two weeks
after grass gets green on sunny places, but the leafing-out and
blossoming of the mulched trees will not be delayed more than
three or four days. The reason is that the first growth in spring — •
the first leaves and blossoms — is not fed from the roots, but
comes directly from food stored in the wood of the trees.

You can prove this by pulling into a warm room in mid-
winter a branch of a tree which stands close to the window.
Stop up the hole around the limb. In a week or two buds will
begin to swell on the part of the branch inside, and in a month
blossoms will open, even though the snow may be four feet
deep outside. Or break off a twig bearing fruit buds, in winter,
and put it in water in a warm, light room. It will bloom.

52

FROST DAMAGE TO ORCHARDS

In Ontario, Michigan, Kansas, and other places where win-
ters are severe, growers have found it practicable to protect
their more tender fruit trees by training the roots to extend
only in two directions; then, every fall before the ground
freezes up, they dig a trench on one of the sides which has no
roots, pull the tree over, and cover top and all with straw and
earth. Peach and other trees will stand this treatment and
will yield well under it. Orcharding is hard business under
such circumstances, but growers in cold localities may find
this method profitable when fruit brings high prices at local
markets and where it is wanted at home.

SUMMARY

Cold and cool weather put quality into fruit, hence higher
elevations and northern latitudes produce higher quality fruit
than lower elevations and southerly latitudes.

Each mile north or south equals eight feet of elevation; or
each degree of latitude equals 500 feet of elevation.

It is not necessary to lose any crops from spring frosts.

Proper care in locating trees, in cultivating, etc., will help
prevent frost damage. Nearby bodies modify temperature.
Air drainage is the prime frost-damage preventive, and is
more important than exposure or soil or elevation. Air-drainage
is governed by the lay of the land — by comparative elevations
— and by draws, shoulders of hills, slopes, hollows, valleys, etc.

Test your orchard location with reliable thermometers.

Windbreaks prevent frost damage when they "break" the
force of wind and do not altogether stop its motion. A piece
of woods will cause a dead air-space, in which blossoms will
surely freeze.

Artificial heating, when rightly done, is effective in prevent-
ing frost damage. Begin the work before the temperature
reaches the danger point.

Get plenty of moisture into the air by wetting the fuel, or
spraying trees with water. Moisture in the air lowers the danger
point and prevents frost damage.

Quick thawing is worse than bad freezing. Cover frozen
blossoms with smoke and prevent the sun from striking them
in the morning.

Adding moisture and insuring slow thawing are the methods
you have of preventing frost danger, — you cannot do much
by directly adding heat to the air.

53

Planting

IN the spring of 1911, two men were driving past a neighbor's
farm in a northern state, and were talking about the neigh-
bor's new apple orchard, which contained five hundred
trees, one year old. "He will never make anything out of them,"
said one man, "because one of the surest signs of what the
future of an orchard will be is how it was started, and this
one has been started wrongly in several ways.

"In the first place, his trees are propagated from inferior
parents. Half of them he budded himself, because he thought
he could grow them cheaper than to buy them, and he got

the buds from the old Baldwin trees on the place. Those

trees never did bear right. The other half were bought from
a nurseryman that I know has little idea whether or not the
buds used came from trees that bear regularly and well. Then
he has set a solid block of the one kind. He has made other
mistakes in planting, but these two have already condemned
his efforts to failure."

This incident of wrong practice so impressed itself on our
minds that we give it here. In the first place, you want trees
that are true to name, and that come from parents which bear
big crops of flawless fruit. We all know that no two trees in an
old orchard bear the same, even if they are of the same variety.
Some bear better than others. A bud will make a new tree
having the same characteristics as the tree from which the
bud was cut; so, right at the start, avoid one great limiter of
your success — the poor trees — and give yourself a chance to
succeed. Get trees that have been propagated from trees which
are bearing, and bearing as they should. If possible, make the
nurseryman tell you where his buds came from, and see these
parent trees if you can.

It would seem almost foolish to tell an intelligent planter
to be sure that his trees are true to name, yet recently we were
in the packing-house of the president of a state horticultural
society, who is himself a large grower. He had many bushels
of very small, insipid peaches he was trying to get rid of. We
asked him what they were, and he replied that they grew on
trees he got as Crawford's Late, from a nursery nearby, taking
their word that the trees were right, even while he knew they
had not grown the trees themselves.

There are a few reliable growers of fruit trees in this country,
and there are hundreds of irresponsible dealers, and growers
who produce trees as cheaply as possible. Some of the dealers
will buy a few thousand trees at wholesale from the unknown
and unreliable growers, whose only care is to deliver some-
thing with a few roots and a top, and who care little what kind
they supply, or what their trees will turn out to be, then "go
into the nursery business" and say they "grow" first-class
stock. The dealer cannot find out where his trees came from.
Orders for different varieties often are filled from the same
block of trees. These trees usually are offered cheaply, yet

54

PRINCIPLES OF GOOD PLANTING

there are plenty of instances in which they have been sold
for almost double a fair price.

Planters can avoid all risk by buying trees from a nursery
that, first, grows all its own trees, and second, gets its buds
from good bearing trees, and points out to you those trees. This
beats all hollow a guarantee to repay you for damage sustained
by reason of wrong varieties. Visit the nursery yourself and select
your trees. Get the best you can find. There is only a dollar or
two difference between the cost of the best and of the poorest,
and the ultimate difference to you will be many, many times
this.

"The best trees" usually are of medium size for their kind
and of the proper age. They are not always straight and clean.
Some kinds do not grow that way. Bear in mind the nature
of the variety, compare the different trees you see of that same
kind, then pick out those that look best to you. Vigor, clean-
liness, health, good roots, and firm, hard, well-ripened wood
are much more important than size. If you buy from a nursery
that grows its own trees, and takes the trouble to keep track
properly of its buds, you can depend on it to do the budding
right and deliver to you trees which are as sound as they can
be grown.

It is generally best, especially north of Virginia, to order
trees in late summer or early fall, and have them delivered
to you either in time for heeling-in that fall, or have them dug
and heeled-in at the nursery for you, then shipped as soon as
zero weather is past, in time for planting the first day in late
winter or early spring that the ground is in shape. Cover tops
and all with dirt when you heel-in, use no straw. Fall planting
is good if done at the right time and if trees are in good shape.
In an average fall, there is only a week or so during which plant-
ing ought to be done. Fall-planted trees make some root growth
during fall and winter, but spring-planted trees, if put in early
enough, will be safer, and will not be behind those planted
the fall before, in growth. In the fall you get the pick of the
season's tree crop, and planting is not delayed because you do
not have trees at the right time. Try to get low prices, but
still do not buy trees because they are cheap. Frequently
the advice is given to buy trees of the nearest nursery. That
is mighty poor advice. Buy trees from the nursery best equipped
to produce good trees. Buy the best trees you can get. Don't
worry about the distance away or about getting the trees to
your place. Good packing will bring trees in perfect condi-
tion anywhere. Freight charges across the continent are no
more than two or three cents a tree and through a half-dozen
states they are likely to be only one cent a tree.

This book is a fruit-grower's guide book, and we have tried
to keep it clear of any reference to our own business of growing
trees except to give our experiences for your benefit. But
here we want to tell you, as a fact valuable for any planter to
know, that we can give you the pedigree of every tree we sell.
We will show you. the parent tree or trees, if you care to go to
see them, bearing in the most successful orchards of the coun-

55

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

try. We grow practically every tree we sell, and we have a
system that almost entirely eliminates any possibility of mixing
varieties. More than that, we handle immense numbers of trees
every season, and the feeding, cultivation, digging, packing and
shipping are done in a manner better than any firm operating
on a smaller scale can do these things. We know this, for now
we do many things that are to the planter's advantage which
we could not do a few years ago, when we were smaller.

Cross pollination is a subject too little understood. In the
chapters on each fruit we say that the only safe way is to alter-
nate different varieties to a certain extent. Put a row of a
different kind every three, four or five rows. About one hun-
dred and fifty feet is far enough to depend on pollen carrying.
Insufficient pollination will result, first, in entire lack of fruit;
and second, in weak setting of some fruits, making crooked,
gnarly individual specimens the rule.

Blossoms are of three kinds. One class is perfect; that is
it contains within its own borders both the male and the female
elements. This kind of blossom may or may not be able to
fertilize itself; sometimes it can, but often it cannot, as in the
case of the large majority of apple blossoms. A second class
of blossoms is male; that is, it has only the stamens — the little
upright hairs that you see in the middle of the flowers. A third
class is female only, and has no stamens, but merely a fleshy
growth at the bottom or center of the flower. With the ex-
ception of the kinds which bear both male and female blos-
soms on different twigs, and a very few which are able to fer-
tilize themselves, all other kinds, of any class, require a variety
of the opposite class near enough so that some of the pollen
from the other kind of blossoms will reach their blossoms with
the help of wind and bees.

Certain varieties have blossoms, perfect to all appearance,
yet are impotent in so far as their own blossoms are concerned.
There are many affinities among the different varieties. For
instance, Bartlett pear is fertilized best by Winter Nelis, Kieffer
by LeConte, Stayman Winesap apple by Duchess or Mcln-
tosh, and so on through the list. Whatever you are planting,
see that you set trees of different varieties within reach of each
other, and also that their times of blossoming come together;
that is, set near each other two early bloomers, or two late
bloomers, but not an early- and a late-blooming kind. Select
the varieties before you go to buy. Determine what you want,
with reference to all the conditions that will have to be met,
then get those kinds. In this way you will have no trouble
about substitution of varieties in filling your order.

Select the location for your orchard with reference to ex-
posure; to air-drainage and other frost-damage factors; to the
character of the soil, and particularly the nature of the sub-
soil. Roots have to go down three or four feet. If there is close
underlying slate or hardpan, avoid that land unless you break
up this hardpan thoroughly and permanently. The section
of the country is of little real importance. Delaware orchardists
are near markets, and their soil is worked easily. West Vir-

56

Spraying-house of a large orchard, Note elevated tanks for water and nurtures.

Top-worked trees; ieft, tnree years from graft; right, five years. Both bear.

Badly split tree saved by bolting Good for a lifetime yet, and worth $50.

57

Left: Leaves affected by cedar rust. Right: Leaves and fruit affected by blotch.

Left: Frog-eye fungus on apple leaves. Right: Characteristic bitter rot

Left: Scab on leaves and fruit. Right: Curl leaf fungus on peach leaves.

58

PRINCIPLES OF GOOD PLANTING

ginia and Pennsylvania lands are high and grow the best qual-
ity of fruit; New England is farther north and claims superior
flavor and keeping qualities; Oregon is far west and claims
superior color. Whether much or little is in these claims, what
is lost in one place is balanced by a gain in another place. So,
plant your trees where you can do it best.

Avoid setting trees too close together. They feed over a
wide area if they have the opportunity, and they are the better
for it. Our plan is to set three peach trees to one standard ap-
ple. Where peach trees are used as fillers, we get from fifty to
two hundred trees on an acre, depending on many things. With
apples you will get more cash returns from thirty trees on an
acre, in the East, than from sixty on an acre. Some varieties,
however, are naturally smaller growers than others, and can
be planted closer; also the section has something to do with
it. For instance, trees grow bigger in Pennsylvania or Delaware
than in Michigan or the West. The system of pruning you are
going to adopt, as well as the price of land, has something to
do with the distance the trees should be apart. Leave plenty
of room for spraying, cultivating, driving about with wagons,
etc. Keep the trees far enough away from boundary fences,
and never plant them closer than forty feet (one hundred
feet is better) to thick woods or an evergreen windbreak.
Privet needs only twenty feet, and in most sections is as good
as any known plant for windbreaks. Fillers, of course, alter the
distances given, as they merely occupy the ground before the
premanent trees get big enough. The following gives the
shortest distances at which trees should be set:

Apple trees need fifty, forty, or thirty feet between one
another, depending on various conditions named above (dwarfs
ten to fifteen); pears twenty, twenty-five or thirty; quinces
fifteen to eighteen; peaches thirteen, eighteen, twenty-one
to twenty-five feet; plums fifteen, twenty to twenty-five feet;
sour cherries the same as peaches, and sweet cherries the same
as pears (in some sections forty to fifty feet); grapes should be
put six by eight feet to eight by ten feet; strawberries from
eighteen inches each way to one by four feet; raspberries from
three by six to five by eight feet; and blackberries from four
by seven to six by nine feet.

Fillers always are to be recommended to careful growers.
If you think you will not use your trees right while they are
growing, or that you will lack the determination to cut out
the nicely bearing fillers when they are about twelve years
old, do not plant fillers, for these things must be done. But
no business farmer will think of going to the expense of growing
a first-class apple or pear orchard without planting early-bear-
ing sorts of these same fruits, or of peaches or strawberries,
between his permanent trees. To use fillers makes the orchard
a paying investment considering it on a five- to eight-year
basis; while without them you will have to take fifteen years,
or even longer, as the time in which you are "starting" your
future orchard, or before you get back the entire cost and be-
gin to see a yearly surplus.

59

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

The following table gives the number of trees that can be
set on an acre by the square method, and by the triangular,
(called quincunx, or hexagonal also) method:

Square Triangular

method method

40 feet apart 27 31

35 feet apart 35 4°

30 feet apart 50 55

20 feet apart 70 80

20 feet apart no 125

18 feet apart 135 155

15 feet apart 195 225

12 feet apart 305 350

10 feet apart 435 505

8 feet apart 680 675

6 feet apart 1,210 1,600

5 feet apart i,74S 2,010

4 feet apart 2,725 3,145

3 feet apart 4,840 4,890

2 feet apart 10,560 12,575

i foot apart 43, 560 50,300

Trees sometimes can be planted to advantage farther apart
one way than another. To do this, you have to work out the

Elan for your own orchards. This plan works best on steep
ills. The rows should follow the lines of the hill to make
driving easier. No rules can be laid down for hillside arrange-
ment. Use some modification of the plans given here.

The triangular method of arrangement is the best for those
trees which should have more than eighteen feet between.
We illustrate it here. The square system and the many vari-
ations of each system are not shown, as they are very simple
and are understood everywhere. In the triangular system
each tree is at an equal distance from all of its nearest neigh-
bors, and all of the ground is used as completely as it can be.
In the square system, the diagonal distance across the squares
is longer than the sides, so there is waste space in the middle
of the square. To mark out the position for trees by the tri-
angular plan, set stakes along one side of your orchard land,
•just where the trees are to go. Then, with two helpers, take a
wire a little longer than the distance you want the trees apart,
put a loop at each end and one in the middle, leaving the
length then just exactly right, and direct each of your help-
ers to take an end loop and hold it at a stake. You, with
the middle loop, will step out into the field, and when you have
stretched the wire, you will have the exact place for the tree.
Drive a stake there, and continue in the same manner all the
way across the field. Many variations of this can be practiced.
Do not use a strap or a rope, for they will stretch. A single
wire, to go to one stake, will do, if you cannot get more than
one helper. In that case, mark a semicircle with a stick in your
loop, about where you think the place is, then send your helper
to the second stake and make another semicircle. Where the
marks cross is the place for the tree. This plan will work per-
fectly on hills and rough land.

You also can fix the positions for the first few trees on an end
and a side with a tape or any measure, and then, from these,

60

PRINCIPLES OF GOOD PLANTING

get the distance between the rows, or lines, of trees, directly,
and set stakes at the ends of these on all four sides; then plow
furrows, or stretch a wire (about No. 14, with drops of solder
and colored strings wrapped on the proper distance apart
for the trees) completely across the field where the row will
stand, and put the trees the distance apart decided on origin-
ally. The square method of setting is simple, and, if it is wanted,
any one quickly will think of an adaptation of some of these
plans for getting the position of each tree. A way to avoid
setting a stake exactly where the tree is to stand is to set a row
of stakes entirely around the orchard land, and then set two
rows entirely across the middle, in opposite directions, being
careful to get these center stakes between tree rows.

Anywhere you look, in this way, you will have two stakes
to sight by. The stakes can be so arranged that trees can be
set either on the square or triangular plan, by carefully think-
ing out beforehand in which directions the rows will run, and the
positions of the trees, then setting the stakes accordingly. If
you adopt this plan, and keep the stakes away from the posi-
tion for the trees, you will not need the following. But it takes
a good eye to set trees straight in holes, and here is a surer
plan: After you have a stake exactly where each tree is to go,
get a board seven feet long, with a wooden pin about six inches
long sticking down from each end, one pin tight, the other
loose, and with a deep notch in the middle of the board. When
you dig the tree holes, first lay this board down (always with
the same side up and notch ahead) with the stake in the notch,
push the pins into the ground, then pull out the stake, lift
the end of the board which has the removable pin, and turn
it around out of the way. When you are ready to plant the
tree, bring the board back again, drop the end with the hole
over its pin, which is still sticking where you left it, and set
the tree with the trunk in the notch.

Where there are more than a couple of dozen trees to plant,
it is best to double-stake the whole orchard before holes are
dug. This is the way to do when you use dynamite in digging
the tree holes. Instead of having one pin solid in the board,
merely have two holes through which to drive small stakes
that are left at each hole. After the holes are blown out or
dug, and when you go to plant, put the board over the stakes
again, and get the exact position for the tree at the notch.

Unpack trees as soon as you get them, unless they are
frozen. (In that case let them thaw out slowly in a cool cellar.)
Shake out packing material, dip the roots in mud, and either
plant or heel-in at once. If you heel-in, cover tops and all
with dirt. Young trees should be well cut back at the time of
planting, as directed in the pruning chapter, in order to get a
balance between the amount of roots and the amount of top.
Half, or more, of the roots always are destroyed in digging trees,
even with the most careful work that can be done, so we must
cut back the top to correspond. All damaged roots should be
cut off smoothly with the slant on the under side. The tops
should be cut down to where you want the heads to start

61

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

(usually twelve to twenty inches from the ground.) This can
be done best a week or a month after the trees are set. The
branches should be shortened at the same time.

Dip the roots into thin mud, spread them in carefully pre-
pared holes (dynamited if possible) that are wide enough and
deep enough to hold the roots without cramping. Work good,
fine dirt in among the roots thoroughly. Ram it in with a
stick. Move the tree up and down repeatedly. Pack the dirt
well. You cannot get it too solid about roots, except two inches
on the surface, which should be loose. Use your whole weight,
or better, pack with a heavy maul. Leave no air-spaces.

Do not let the roots lie exposed to sun or wind. Never let
them dry. Cover the roots with a wet blanket, pack them in
a tight wagon-box and cover with dirt or wet straw, or load
the trees into a barrel filled with water, and, as planted, pour
a little of the water about each one. Trees should go just a
little deeper than they were in the nursery. Watch the dark
line of bark at the base, and put this an inch below the surface.
It often is a good plan to use water in planting. The
surface of the newly dag earth, for a couple of feet about the
little trees, should be covered with a six-inch mulch of straw
or leaves, to retain the moisture. Trees will need no fertilizing
till the second summer, when a little nitrate of soda or horse
manure will do good work.

SUMMARY

Get trees that you know are right — the importance of this
cannot be over emphasized.

To be sure of reliable trees you must buy them from a firm
that is responsible — that knows how to propagate trees, works
by a system that prevents the possibility of mistakes, and backs
up their stock till it bears.

Good trees are true to name, and are propagated from parents
that bear heavy crops of flawless fruit. See the parent trees
whenever possible.

Always visit the nursery and select your trees yourself when
it is possible. It pays.

Buy the most vigorous, cleanest, healthiest, best ripened,
biggest rooted trees you can find anywhere — the best will cost
only a few dollars per hundred more than poor ones.

Select and place your trees with regard to cross pollination.
Lack of pollination is a frequent cause of small and poor crops.

When you plant, consider air, drainage, soil, etc. Always
arrange trees by a handy system, and put them far enough
apart.

Use fillers — and cut them out in time.

Trees must be planted just at the right time. A dollar's
worth of care in planting will save many dollars' worth of trees.
Follow the suggestions given here.

Don't forget to mulch newly set trees.

We plant standard apple trees 20 by 20 feet, and cut out
fillers when 12 to 20 years of age.

62

Caused by woolly aphis, by partially freezing buds, winter or spring, and by poor pollination.

Incrustation-San Jose Scale

San Jose attacks both bark and fruit, and infects Ben Davis very badly.

Cluster Buds-Proper Stage for First Scab Sprayin

During only two to four days are the buds in best condition for this spraying.

63

Put the material on with force, drive it into every nook. Get a machine that will do this.

Blossoms — Stage to spray for codlin moth. Four days later half the worms would escape.

A practicable spraying outfit for small orchards, and where trees are small.

64

Pruning

FEW understand what pruning really is, hence it is necessary
to explain from nature. To cause trees to reproduce them-
selves is Nature's principal object; she bids each grow high
and thick as rapidly as possible, and produce as many seeds as
possible, without regard to the flesh in which they are contained.
A tree will produce a thousand seeds for every one that possibly
could find a place to grow. The stronger choke back the weaker
and all damage themselves in the struggle for existence.

In the orchard we have left nature's plan behind, and the
trees no longer have to fight for space, light and food. In the
sunny, cultivated spaces, where they are not kept back by one
another, they grow too fast and too much, and naturally pro-
duce too many seeds. This brings the necessity of pruning and
thinning, or, rather, the necessity of training the trees to so
shape themselves that they will ripen the largest number of
heavy-fleshed fruits, with less regard to seeds.

We prune, therefore, to modify the vigor of trees; to make
them produce larger and better fruits; to let the sunlight in
to every leaf and fruit; to change their habit from wood-mak-
ing to fruit-making, or from fruit-making to wood-making,
as required; to remove useless, harmful or injured parts; to
give trees a longer life; to keep trees within manageable size
to make easier the spraying, cultivation, harvesting, and to
train them to a desired form.

Trees are living things, and are affected by everything we do
to them. Too often they are used as though they were dead
posts. We cannot remove a single branch without modifying
every other branch on that tree. A tree thus can be trained or
molded to a remarkable extent, and he who prunes intelligently
will surely get good results.

But pruning has to be learned by experience. We can
explain the principles, but to acquire skill in accomplishing
the results you desire, you must do the work yourself and watch
the effect from year to year. No two trees are alike. No two
branches are alike. The rules laid down must be modified to
fit each kind of tree and even each single tree. For instance,
Kieffer Pears must be handled differently from Seckel; Spy
apples differently from King. To work over a tree and give it
the care that it needs, as an individual, is one of the most
fascinating operations in orcharding.

Think first of securing the best possible shape and size. For
all practical purposes and for most trees a low head and an
open head is what you want — low, because you can work over
it better; open, to let the sunlight and air reach all the leaves
and fruits. (Trees feed from both roots and leaves.) There
are other considerations, such as having the head well bal-
anced, good to look upon, and carrying the largest possible
amount of fruit-bearing wood that the roots can feed; avoiding
forks that will split apart under a load; keeping branches
growing into the prevailing wind and away from the morning

65

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

sun (against tendencies to the opposites of these), and leaving
space under the branches for horses and tools.

Keep these words before you as you work about the trees —
"a low head and an open head." They will suggest the removal
of this and of that little limb, the pinching of tips here and
there, the leaving of others. A well-trained tree that has reached
bearing age in good form can be kept right with very little
cutting afterward. Few trees need .central leaders — only
those of the plums, pears, apples, etc., which grow very up-
right in the spring, and then spread away out as the fruit
develops. Some horticulturists advise us not 'to remove big
limbs when we can avoid it. We do not agree with that, for
limbs should be removed when there is a reason for it, even if
they are a foot thick. Of course the work must be done
right, as explained later. Still, the time to remove limbs is
when you can do it with your fingers — pinching buds — or with
light pruning-shears or a pocket-knife. Direct the growth to
where it is needed.

Remember this: A limb never gets any higher from the
ground that it was when it started. Decide when you plant
and first prune where you want the head of your trees to start.
Some trees have to be cut back to a mere stick, as is correct
with peach; with other kinds, such as apple and quince trees
old enough to be branched, you have to select, then and there,
the limbs you want for the framework of the head, and nip
these back to buds growing in the direction you want the
branches to continue. One big grower likes to have one main
trunk from which the five or six frame-limbs grow out in a
rising spiral; others prefer to have all the limbs start at nearly
the same height; but all agree that no two limbs should be
opposite each other, because this will form a fork that will
split.

Trees are just as free with their buds while young as they
are with seeds when older. Hundreds of buds are produced
for every branch or blossom that can grow. We do not even
see all the buds; you can remove every one you can find, yet
by the next season the tree will have brought to Jight more
dormant buds than you removed. Because of this you can
train twigs and branches to grow into almost any direction
you wish. It is not a question of pruning as little as possible;
it is a matter of selecting the one bud out of a hundred that is
to live; and you want to select this bud, for if you do not,
nature will for you, but probably not in the way that is best
for producing fine fruit. Do not think you can keep all the
growth a tree makes, or nearly all. Make up your mind that
a good part of it must die, from one cause or another. It is
the law of nature. You must direct the growth into a proper
form.

Certain tendencies of trees must be remembered when you
cut off buds or branches. First, a young tree is likely to grow
faster than an old one, therefore it requires more heading
back than an older one. Any tree will try to grow first from
its topmost or outermost buds. Always cut to a bud or branch ,

66

PROPER TRAINING OF TREES

and to one that grows in the direction desired. (Three-eighths
or a quarter-inch above the bud is the proper distance to cut.)
The tree will throw its sap into this bud or branch and develop
it with all the strength formerly given to both it and the part
removed. Direct the shaping of your tree by following this
rule. In cutting leaders or shoots, remember that the natural
habit will be to grow straight on. Thus, if you cut a tall-grow-
ing shoot on a two-year tree, you probably will find another
shoot extending straight on up the next season, with only a
slight offset where you made the cut.

By keeping the center open, you will avoid nearly all crossed
limbs, but where these are found, one of them always should
be cut out. When you find two limbs growing parallel, cut
away one. You can have a "double-decked" tree, but you
cannot succeed with a three- or four-decked one. When there
are more than two branches between the earth and the sky
at any one place, remove- all but the best two. Never cut a
good limb that is in the right place in order to get under it
with a horse. The limb is worth more than ten times what the
cultivation would be worth. Mulch under that limb. The
tallest apple trees should not be more than twenty feet high.
When they become higher than this, head them back once or
twice a year, and keep them down to workable size.

Just as stronger, bigger trees will overshadow and dwarf
the leaner ones beside them, the lusty limbs or buds will stunt
and starve out the smaller ones on the same trees. You must
keep a balance between the various parts, or the biggest ones
will get still bigger, and the smaller ones smaller yet. Water
sprouts should be nipped when they start, unless the tree
needs new limbs where they grow out.

These principles will enable any one to go to any kind of a
fruit tree, and, after a little study, train it into any desired
shape as it grows. To make the tree bear fruit, and fruit of
the finest kind, other elements and habits are to be considered.
But, in all pruning, remember that constant watching is best.
Go over your trees at least once a year, twice if possible, giving
them the nips they need. In this way little heavy cutting will
be required, and the total amount of work will be lessened
greatly. Ten minutes to a tree twice a year will accomplish
much more than two hours to a tree every two or three years.

Study of the fruit buds will open the eyes of many growers,
first as to their method of growth and life, then as to their
location. Fruit buds are usually thicker and fatter than leaf
buds, and have a shorter point. You can learn to tell them apart
by studying the trees in the fall and spring. We do not have
space here to explain the full process of their formation, but
we can say that fruit buds and leaf buds are transformable
to a certain extent. If the growth of a shoot is not checked,
all of its buds will make branches. But nature asserts itself;
certain buds are checked by stronger ones, even after they
have developed into little branches, and these dwarfed buds
or branches, since they cannot make new branches of their
own, turn to the other work of a tree — seed-producing.

67

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

The first few years of a tree's life should be given up almost
entirely to building a frame on which to bear crops. Disap-
pointed branchlets along the inside limbs may produce a few
fruits, but until the tree is rather large it should devote its
energies to growing. After the tree is large enough, however,
fruit-bearing is the thing for it to do, and more growth should
be discouraged. On the ideal tree there should be just enough
new growth to replace annual wear and tear. Of course more
will grow, and this will have to be cut back or the trees will
become too large, meanwhile neglecting the work of fruit-
producing. What you want to do is to disappoint the great
majority of buds, and thus make them change their leaf and
branch buds to fruit buds.

This checking of the growth can be accomplished by tip-
ping back each season's growth a certain amount, depending
on the kind of tree. The very best time to do it is after the
fruit has set tightly, as you are thinning. Trees stop their
season's growth much earlier than is ordinarily supposed,
and if you cut off half or mo~e of the length of the shoots some
time in June or July, you throw the energies of the tree into
the forming of the fruit. As your tree is big enough, you do
not need more wood, so the various processes work together.
In the same way, all summer pruning makes for fruit-bearing
and fruit-developing. If you were to prune large trees in the
winter, the sap, when it came in the spring, immediately would
go to replacing this wood, thus giving each remaining bud
a better chance of becoming a branch, its first desire, and lessen-
ing the number and vigor of those buds that devote th imselves
to producing fruit. (Wounds made in winter and subjected
to freezing require twice as long to heal as summer wounds,
and many never heal properly.) We recommend that pears
and apples, especially, be tipped back in June.

Fruit buds usually are thicker and more blunt than leaf
buds. In winter you can distinguish them easily by their
appearance. The aim should be to have as many fruit buds
scattered all over the trees as possible. There should be no
long stretches of bare limbs. To make fruit spurs, merely pinch
off the end buds of little branches, instead of cutting the whole
branches off close to the limbs from which they grow. If you
do this, and afterward avoid breaking the spurs thus formed,
you will have fruit all over the tree, and these spurs never will
get much bigger than they need to be to support two or three
fruits.

This brings up a point that must be remembered. Apples,
pears, cherries, plums, etc., bear their fruit only on wood that is
two or more years old. Peaches bear only on one-year-old wood,
while American grapes and quinces bear on wood of the same
season's growth. When you prune always remember how old
the fruit spur must be in order to bear, and arrange in advance
for the formation of more and more fruit spurs. As explained
in the thinning chapter, two or three years are required to
develop most fruit buds (excepting peach and grape) to the
point where they blossom. Unless careful thinning and growth-

68

PROPER TRAINING OF TREES

checking are done, the production and ripening of one or two
fruits on a spur will prevent that spur from working ahead to
develop fruit buds for the next and the second year ahead. This
it has to do if it is to set fruit again before three years.

Judicious tipping greatly helps fruit spurs to keep on form-
ing new fruit buds, and, of course, thinning the fruit aids greatly.
Still, it is a good plan to see that each year there are large num-
bers of fruit spurs which do not bear at all. Let some ripen
the crop for next year, others the crop for two years ahead,
and still others the crop for the third year to come. By careful
pruning you can develop on your trees enough fruit spurs to
do this. But it takes study and care — not so much work at
any one time as a few minutes now and a few again. Watch
your trees expanding and growing. The trees will develop the
fewest possible fruit spurs if left alone — you want them to
develop the greatest possible number.

The healing of wounds must be considered if pruning is
to be productive only of good. In order to find how to make
cuts that heal the quickest, let us examine into the method
of growing a bud or limb. Close to the heart of the limb or
trunk a tiny knot will form, and grow out through the wood
to the bark. After this the projecting knot will have bark of
its own. For our purpose it is correct to think of each bud or
twig or limb as a thing in itself, just as though you bored a hole
in the parent stock and drove a wooden plug in. When this
projecting limb (small or large) is cut off, the part within the
parent wood dies. It is not altogether a part of the trunk or
the old limb. If the cut is made close to the trunk or old limb,
however, bark from it will grow over the end of this dead wood
inside, sealing it up entirely and keeping out water, bacteria
and fungi spores.

Bacteria act on an exposed dead stub of a limb exactly as
they do on a piece of wood in the soil, disintegrating it and
"rotting" it, thus leaving a hollow into the heart of the tree.
Part of the dead stub merely dissolves in water, the same as
salt will. After the bacteria come the fungi, which tear down
(rot) the dead stub with their roots, exactly as the grass and
tree roots help pulverize and tame earth. The bark on the
parent stock grows over a wound by callousing — that is, by
forming a swelled ring around it, gradually closing in more and
more until the surface is completely covered again.

The tree can do this healing easily if the wound is close to
the surface and parallel with it. It cannot do it if there is a stub ;
therefore cut closely. No matter if the surface of the wound
is larger, saw right through the thick part at the base, and
cut closely. Make a cut underneath the larger limbs, to prevent
splitting down, — such a split is inexcusable on a fruit tree. Win-
ter pruning is bad, because the tender bark freezes and kills
back from the edge of the wound, making healing more dim-
cult. Every wound larger than a quarter-inch should be covered
with some substance that will keep water out and protect
the raw surface from the air (preventing evaporation) and
kill bacteria and spores of fungi. Raw linseed oil paint is very

69

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FjRUIT

good, grafting wax is better, and even clay helps. Tar and some
other substances injure the bark. Do not neglect this painting
over of the wounds, as it is one of the most important oper-
ations connected with pruning limbs thicker than an inch.
When tipping back, cut about one-fourth inch above a bud
or branch. This stub will then live and heal over.

Except at planting time, when damaged roots should come
off, with a slicing cut that leaves the slant under, root pruning
is to be avoided in the East and North. It is of practicable
benefit only when the soil is very loose, rich and warm, and
the climate almost subtropical. Along the Atlantic and Gulf
coast, in the southern states, a practice of cutting all roots
back to six inches, or even shorter, is sometimes seen, but there
is little excuse for this. Better keep all the perfect roots you
can.

We do not say much here about the tools to use in pruning,
or the methods of cutting, etc. Those things can be decided
by every grower. Saws, shears, axes, knives and other tools
of all kinds are at his command. We picture some in this
book. If wrong cuts are made, limbs allowed to split down,
or ragged ends left projecting, the operator is not a good fruit-
grower, that is all, and no amount of suggestion will keep him
from failure. Study your trees and train them as you would
a child — that's the way to succeed.

SUMMARY

Trees produce a thousand seeds and a hundred buds to
every one that can possibly find a chance to mature. Pruning
is a question of selecting this one out of a thousand that will
accomplish best the result we want. Proper pruning directs
the growth to where you want it by disappointing buds that
start in other directions and with other aims. It is foolish to
think that trees will naturally grow into the best shape, for
nature's plan is to make trees thick and big as fast as possible,
while modern orcharding demands trees that are low and open,
and demands large, flawless fruit instead of little, imperfect
fruit.

Adapt your pruning to the habits of the trees. For nine-
tenths of all trees a low head and an open head is the best possible
form.

Go over trees often. Do your pruning by pinching tips,
rather than by sawing big limbs after they grow in the wrong
place. Young trees must be pruned right when they are planted
(headed from twelve to twenty inches from ground, and branches
shortened) and must be gone over twice a season for a few
years. Prune bearing trees every year. They will not need much
if properly cared for while young.

Summer pruning results in more fruit buds; winter pruning
in more wood growth. Aim to make young trees grow, and
older ones bear. You can do this by varying the tipping back
and cutting out.

Wounds made in winter are hard to heal. All large wounds

70

QUALITY CROPS EVERY YEAR

should be painted. Cuts should be made close to trunks or
limbs and parallel with them.

Watch trees expanding and growing. Live with them.
Train them as you would a child. It is tree nature to develop
the fewest possible fruit buds — you want them to develop the
greatest possible number after the trees are big enough. The
way to take advantage of every possible inch of tree growth is
to direct it often in the way you want it to go — work over trees
several times a year

Quality Fruit, Crops Every Year

CULTIVATION, pruning and spraying will cause fruit
trees to set heavy crops regularly, and, even if neglected,
trees will load their limbs to the ground every three or
four years. Here is a danger that, when not guarded against,
will defeat the purpose which all orchard work is intended to
accomplish.

We care for fruit trees in order to get as much as possible
of the finest grade of fruit. Now, trees will not bear every
year if they are allowed to mature all the fruit they set, or all
that does not drop off naturally; nor will they produce much
except small, inferior fruit.

An apple tree will start twice as many little apples as it
is capable of "raising." A peach tree usually sets ten times the
number of peaches that it can develop and mature properly.
Other fruits will act in the same way. Because of this growers
must thin their fruit.

We may compare the habits of trees to certain facts in the ani-
mal kingdom. If a flock of Wyandotte hens are fed right and
housed properly, and if their eggs are taken from them every
day, they will keep on laying, summer and winter. But if these
same hens were allowed to keep their eggs they soon would
want to hatch. Each hen would lay a nestful of eggs, and then
would sit on them until her breast was nothing but skin and
bone. Probably she would raise, each season, two or three broods
of scraggy, lousy, nondescript chickens, which minks and hawks
could catch easily. It is the same with all animals. If they
breed to excess, they not only destroy their own bodies, but
their offspring are far from perfect.

With trees, it is the production of seeds which uses up vital-
ity and plant food. If trees are allowed to develop and ripen
only a limited number of seeds, they will build large, flawless,
high-colored, rich-flavored fruit; moreover, they will produce
such crops every year. If they ripen too many seeds, they will
exhaust themselves and will produce only a small quantity
of perfect fruit.

It takes a tree two or three years to develop an apple, pear,
plum, cherry, or other fruit, on wood old enough to bear.
(Grapes, peaches and quinces require one year.) We do not

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

see this growth during the first year or two, as it is going on
in the fruit spur and the bud. We must understand it, how-
ever, and plan for it when we want the biggest crops. (For
an explanation of the difference between fruit buds and leaf
buds, see the pruning section.)

A fruit spur usually has several fruit buds, all of which
blossom, and most of which set fruit and make a cluster. The
rule for thinning is to remove fruits until they are no closer
than four to six inches, doing the work as soon as they are
large enough to be found easily — the size of hickory nuts —
and as soon as the fruit has set tightly. If this is done, only
a tenth or a twentieth of the buds will mature fruit, although
nearly all are likely to set fruit at the beginning of the season.

As soon as the baby fruit is taken off, the other nine (or the
other nineteen) buds will proceed to start fruit for the next
year or the second year, while the fruit allowed to hang on is
growing and ripening. A reserve crop always will be coming
on if proper thinning is practiced before the surplus fruit has
had a chance to exhaust the vitality of the buds, and this
will make certain the setting of a crop of fruit on that tree every
year.

Thinning saves the tree, and by reducing the amount of
energy which the tree puts into growing its crop, actually
saves in fertilizer. It has been demonstrated frequently that
a fruit tree on which thinning has been done correctly needs
only half as much potash as is required by another on which
the fruit has not been thinned.

Thinning would pay even though it should reduce the
total number of bushels by half, but it does no such thing.
We have seen trees from which 800, 1,200, 1,500 i, 800, and up
to 2,000 apples by actual count, each, had been thinned. Often
fewer were left on than were taken off. But it was found at the
end of the season that the trees had put enough extra size
into the apples remaining to make up for the difference in the
number.

When a tree starts to develop 4,000 apples, take 2,000 of
them off, and the remaining 2,000 will make as many bushels
as the original 4,000 on that tree would have made. If apples
are thinned to six inches apart (other fruits in proportion),
the number of bushels will be changed but little; if they are
thinned to three inches, practically the same bulk will be borne,
there being more apples, smaller in size. Thinning within
reasonable limits influences the size and quality of the apples
but not the number of bushels.

It is certain also that when fruit is thinned those left will
take on a higher color. A more correct way of describing the
process is that the color comes earlier in the season. All fruits
would color up in time, but winter comes on, and time is a
thing fruit does not have. Ripening on thinned trees is more
thorough and complete. Few apples will be ripe one side and
green the other; nearly all will be colored naturally and hand-
somely on both sides, and be ripe throughout.
i One reason why thinning is so effective is due to the fact

72

QUALITY CROPS EVERY YEAR

that trees feed from both the roots and the leaves, as no one
now disputes. At the stem of every fruit is a bunch of leaves.
Sometimes there are half a dozen, sometimes only one, but
those are the leaves which mainly feed the fruit. (A smaller amount
of nutriment is drawn from any leaves within a foot.) Prove
this for yourself by pulling those stem leaves off several twigs.
You will find that without them the fruit will stay small and
green. Think then, how, when there is only one apple every
six inches, each will have a dozen or more leaves feeding it,
and consequently will develop to its fullest extent. This simple
fact explains a great many things, and if we bear it in mind
we easily can better the quality of many bushels of fruit as
we work about the trees.

The proportion of water in fruits will vary, of course.
Apples have about 87 per cent. Now, since fruit is made up
so largely of water, it costs trees very little to develop the
flesh — so little, in fact, that we can almost overlook the plant-
food required. Thus, any given number of big apples does not
use up five per cent more plant-food than the same number
of small apples. All this extra size and color and flavor costs
practically nothing. It is to be had for the taking. Even the
work of thinning is only doing in June labor that would have
to be done anyhow in September or October. The other two
thousand apples would have to be picked when ripe, and it
does not require any more time to pick big apples than it does
to pick little ones.

All wormy, small and inferior fruits should come off first.
This will destroy an immense number of insects and fungi
spores, just at the stage when it will do the most good — getting
rid of the next generation before it is hatched. Good fruits
should come off next, until only one remains of the cluster,
and until the fruits are far enough apart.

Fruit on tips of long whips should come off, too, as it will
not develop into fancy specimens. If, after thinning to the
regular distance, so much weight remains that the branches
require props, thin some more. Props are a sign of poor orchard-
ing. Don't be afraid of taking off too much. Harden your
heart and snip ahead.

Thinning the fruit on young trees is a necessity. Three-
or four- or five-year-old trees often will stunt themselves seri-
ously by maturing all the fruit they set. On two- and three-
year-old apple and pear, and on one- and two-year trees of other
kinds, the blossoms should come off, not even waiting for fruit
to set.

It costs from ten to fifty cents to thin a twenty-year old
apple tree. Stone fruits can be thinned by pulling the fruits
off, while apples and pears will have to be cut off with shears.
But mark this down and wear it on your sleeve: don't damage
the buds from which you take fruit. They are your next year's
crop.

By thinning, you can make your entire crop bring 20 to 300
per cent more than it would without thinning. You can have
$i.5o-bushel apples, instead of the $o-cent kind. Thinning

73

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

would pay if you would get only half as many bushels, because
five bushels of large, perfect apples are worth more than ten
bushels of small, inferior ones.

It is almost impossible to grow first-class peaches without
thinning, and equally difficult to get good plums. With grapes
it is no less important, but they should be thinned by winter
pruning. Cherries and pears require less thinning than other
fruits, but still they need it and cannot do nearly so well as
they should unless they get it.

SUMMARY

To get heavy crops of flawless fruit every year, when other
conditions have been met, thinning is necessary.

Fruit trees naturally will set twice as many fruits as they can
mature perfectly. Unless removed, these will devitalize the
trees, exhaust the fruit buds, and then grow into imperfect,
small fruit.

By taking off half an ordinary crop, we do not reduce the
number of bushels, but increase the size of each remaining
fruit.

High color, rich flavor and perfect form are insured by
directing the whole energy of the tree into a limited number of
fruits.

Only a half or a third of the fruit buds on a tree should bear
each year. The others should be developing for the next two
crops. It takes most fruits two or three years to develop.

Never let trees that are too young mature many fruits.

Remember that the big profits come only from fine fruit,
and that to get it you must thin intelligently.

Take off all fruits that grow closer than from four to six
inches. Leave only the finest specimens — removing damaged
ones, smaller ones, those on the ends of long whips, etc. Do
it soon after the fruit has set tightly, when it is about as large
as hickory nuts.

Living Enemies of Trees

ONE of the fourteen essentials for fruit-growing mentioned
at the beginning of this book was absence of enemies.
When a grower has mastered the methods of producing
good fruit, and has trees coming on nicely, his work is not done,
for he must overcome a lot of bugs and diseases which will
stunt or kill his trees and prevent the growth or ruin the quality
of his fruit if they are left alone.

Most fruit-growers are convinced of this. The following
paragraph is not for them. But still many farmers point to
the fact that until a few years ago no spraying or other fighting
was done, and say it will not pay now. These men have an
honest idea that spraying is a fad which soon will cease to be

74

LIVING ENEMIES OF TREES

popular. Owners of old trees and planters of new orchards are
especially likely to neglect this work, giving themselves the com-
forting assurance that they, anyway, do not need to do it.

Such a course causes all kinds of trouble. Enemies get a
start and are harder to overcome later, when the grower wakes
up, as he must if he expects from his trees returns worth talking
about. Some of the greatest fruit states have laws compelling
owners to spray their trees. In certain sections spraying must
be done or the authorities will spray the trees and charge the
cost in the regular tax levy, or if trees are diseased will even
cut them down. This shows how spraying is regarded in some
of the most successful fruit-growing localities. It pays to
spray every season, all kinds of trees, and in all localities.
If you have not done it before, do not hesitate now. Acquire
knowledge of the enemies, of the spraying machines, and of
the materials to use, and when the proper time comes, spray.

Trees are living things, and must be so regarded. If you are
to succeed in producing profitable crops, you must approach
orchard problems with an open mind. By intelligent spraying
you will make sure of having healthy trees, stimulate growth
and protect foliage. Proper spraying will prevent scab, blotch,
rust, nearly all rotting, damage to fruit by worms; will control
scale insects, and almost, if not quite, all the troubles that keep
fruit out of the flawless class. It will insure a big crop of full-
sized, clean leaves. Foliage is an essential physical part of a
tree. To secure good foliage, you must protect the trunk, limbs,
twigs and buds of the tree from injury. Spraying does this, and
at the same time seems to help growth, especially when lime-
sulphur is used. It is certain that trees which are sprayed take
on a brighter green, make a better growth, live longer, and
produce fruit which is cleaner, better colored and better ripened
than trees which are not sprayed. (Probably due to antiseptic
action of spray materials.) If done right, spraying can not
possibly harm trees, and is almost sure to cause them to live
twenty years or more longer than they would if they had not
been sprayed.

The first essential in spraying is to find out what to spray for
— what you want to kill, and how to go about it. There are four
classes of enemies that must be fought, with many kinds in each
class. You may have none, one, or all four on your trees now —
if none, you are likely to get some next month. That is not
cheering, but, if you heed the warning, it will help you to add
several dollars to the value of the fruit you can harvest from
each tree.

There are insects that chew at trees or fruit, like codlin
moth larvae (apple worms) and curculio; insects that suck
at trees, like San Jos6 scale; parasites that take root on trees or
fruit, like bitter rot, blotch, and mildew ; and bacteria which attack
leaves, bark or wood, like fire blight. Each has to be fought at
the right time and with different materials, but the treatments
often can be combined so that several enemies may be overcome
by the same sprayings.

To give the most and clearest information in the least space,

75

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

we have adopted the plan of describing briefly the enemies of
each fruit in the chapter given to the fruit, so they may be
recognized, and of telling the remedy for each trouble and how
to make and use it in the spraying directions and in the formulas
immediately following. Here we give general points that must
not be overlooked:

Insects that chew are killed by poisons. Arsenate of lead is
used universally to control them, and is generally conceded to
be the only satisfactory remedy.

Insects that feed by inserting their beak into the bark and
sucking juice cannot eat poisons placed on the surface, so they
must be gone after with a contact mixture that will kill them
when it touches their bodies. In the long search for suitable
materials for this purpose, experimenters had great trouble to
get mixtures of a chemical composition that would kill insects and
yet not destroy or injure trees. The margin is narrow and the
greatest care must be used in preparing the remedies, both to
get the right proportions of the different materials, and to com-
bine them right. A little change in mixing lime-sulphur, for
instance, may make all the difference between a solution that
is effective and one that is worthless or dangerous.

To control sucking insects, the miscible oils may be used to
a considerable extent. Their chief value lies in their ability to
clean up quickly bad infestations of scale on apple and pear
trees. (They are also useful on shade trees, for several enemies.)
But nine-tenths of the time, lime-sulphur solution is unques-
tionably the best material for all sucking insects on all fruit
trees.

Carefully note that some spraying is done on trees when
dormant with one kind of lime-sulphur; and when in leaf, with
a different mixture, or at a different strength. The scale insects
(or any sucking insects) are very hardy and difficult to kill.
Strong solutions must be used to do it, and these solutions would
kill foliage and tender twigs if applied during the growing
period. A solution that will not damage the foliage will hold
the insects in check. The solutions must reach every fraction
of an inch of surface and should go on with good pressure.
A pressure of 100 to 150 pounds to the square inch will insure
results that cannot be obtained with lower pressure, and will
economize material.

Fungi and parasites are the third class of tree enemies
mentioned. These really are plants, of a very low order, which
live by attaching themselves to other plants and drawing their
food from the living bark, wood, leaves or fruit. Leaf spots
and rusts, the rots, etc., are familiar forms of fungi. Toadstools
and common mold are also fungi, of a different kind, growing
only on dead matter, while the fungi which bother trees grow
on living matter.

Fungi generally increase by dividing their bodies and by grow-
ing a fruiting stalk, which finds its way up or out from the root,
as a plant stalk grows from the seed, then produces a spore
or spores. The spores are thrown off and scattered by wind,
birds, etc., and sometimes by fogs. Most fungi live inside the

76

LIVING ENEMIES OF TREES

bark, fruit or leaf tissue. To protect your trees and fruit from
injury by fungus, the remedy must be applied at the right time —
which is just before the spores have made their appearance.
This will make it impossible for them to germinate or live after
they lodge on bark, foliage or fruit.

If the spores once germinate or start to grow, they com-
mence to destroy the tissues on which they live. Even though
you should kill them then, you could not replace the leaf or
bark tissue that has been destroyed already. You must coat
baby fungi with a mixture that will kill them, and the work
is done, for mature fungi "plants" will not live long if not
allowed to reproduce. Prevent the injury — you cannot cure it.

While there are almost unnumbered kinds of fungus, the
preventive measures are simple. Two or three applications of
a standard fungicide mixture at the proper time and in a
thorough manner are all that is required. Lime-sulphur solution
at the dilute strength, combined with ar senate of lead, or self-
boiled lime-sulphur, are effective for early sprayings most of the
time; but in some instances Bordeaux mixture is still the proper
remedy. They should be used in the ways advised in spraying
directions.

For diseases of trees, or attacks of bacteria, examples of
which are fire blight of pear and apple, and yellows of peach, no
material is much of a remedy and spraying is of little use. Trees
do not have a circulation, as do animal bodies. It is ab-
solutely impossible to get a remedy dissolved into the sap of
trees and to make it circulate to every fiber. The only thing
to do is to cut away the affected limb or tree several inches
below any sign of the trouble. Fire blight will show by a dark
line just how far it has gone, and you must cut below this.
Yellows, however, seems to be in the whole tree, and the tree
should be removed, root and branch. Watch your orchard, and
when you see indications of this class of enemies, get your axe
and saw quickly.

In doing this work, have a strong germicide or antiseptic
into which you can dip your tools after cutting off each tree
or limb. If you do not do this, the tools will carry bacteria,
and thus spread the trouble. But do not hesitate to cut. The
only time when it pays to try to "doctor up" an affected tree
is in the case of a fine old landmark or lawn tree. Here you can
wash or most thoroughly spray the whole tree — trunk and twigs
and leaves — with a solution of corrosive sublimate or of copper
sulfate, with a little chance of checking the spread of the disease
so that excessive pruning will not be needed.

There is considerable difference between the different fruits,
and varieties in each fruit vary, as to their ability to withstand
insects and diseases, and also as to their ability to stand strong
spray materials without burning. One kind of fruit, or one
variety, will be badly attacked by some trouble, while right
beside it will be trees of a different fruit or of the same fruit
and a different variety, which will be affected very little or not
at all. Thus peach is always more tender than apple, and it
will not stand nearly as strong materials.

77

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

As an instance of varietal differences, York Imperial apple
leaves are always badly infected by cedar rust whenever any
spores are near, while the leaves of Greening and Ben Davis
trees are little troubled. On the other hand, Ben Davis fruit
will be seriously infected, while both the Greening and York Im-
perial fruit will be clean. In certain sections a particular enemy
may be especially bad, and almost entirely unknown in another
section. So the differences go. Plum is tougher than peach, but
not nearly so tough as cherry, nor cherry as pear. You must
adapt your spraying to the kind of tree to be sprayed.

The importance of knowing the class, the life history and
the habits of your little enemies can not be over-emphasized.
Spraying is of no use unless the proper mixture is applied at the
right time, in the right strength, and in the right way. You
seldom can kill an adult bug — you can kill only the young at a
certain stage of their life, and so prevent the coming of a new
generation. The life of insects generally is short and they eat
little when matured. Adult enemies will not do much harm, and
soon will disappear if they are not allowed to produce young.

Often there are only two to four days during which the spray-
ing can do any good. All the trees have to be gone over then —
every leaf and twig and inch of bark. Rainy weather may cut
even this short time down to one-half or one-third the time,
and you must have men, machines and materials ready to do
the work quickly. A great many of the enemies hatch just
about the time buds are opening and just when the petals
begin to fall from blossoms. Those are spraying times. Some
insects hatch two or more broods in a season; so to destroy them
requires several sprayings in one summer — always at a certain
time, to catch the young at the right period.

Study the enemies. Learn to know them well — to know
what they look like, their habits and when to expect them.
When you know these things, you can fight them successfully.
Merely to "spray," without knowing, will be the poorest of
guess-work, with little chance of success. Even when you feel
there are no large numbers of enemies in your orchard, spray
for insurance. You can protect absolutely a hundred dollars'
worth of fruit with two dollars' worth of spraying — and it pays.

Thoroughness is the key to success in spraying. All the bark
and both top and bottom of every leaf must be wet. If you miss
a branch in the top or center of the trees or the under sides of
a few leaves, enough insects may be left to cover the tree again
in a week. It is something like the case of the woman who
worked all day at killing flies in her home. When night came
there was just one pair left, which, in the kindness of her heart,
she let live. But, as she sorrowfully said afterward, "Early
next morning there were a million."

Put the spray material on with force. At least 100 pounds'
pressure should be used, while in some cases 150 or 200 pounds
is best. Drive it into the cracks and crevices in leaves and
bark. Get nozzles close to all the twigs and branches, and use
hose rods, wagon towers and high-pressure pumps that will
enable you to do the work right.

78

LIVING ENEMIES OF TREES

The question of sprayers is not hard to solve. A few gas
sprayers have been made, but compressed-air machines are the
most satisfactory by all odds. We have found several makes
and sizes on the market to be very good. Some are illustrated
here. A man usually develops a liking for some one kind after
becoming well acquainted with all, because of differences in
type and working. The principal points to consider in buying
are these:

An outfit should be of a size suited to your needs, and made
so it will work satisfactorily under your condition. For a half-
dozen trees a small hand-pump in a bucket will do the work.
A knapsack sprayer is a better form of this. The next step up
is a sprayer with a tank and pump, mounted on a frame in the
form of a wheelbarrow, and worked by either one or two men.
Where you have to spray more than fifty trees, it will not pay
to go as slow as this kind of machine does the work.

Even for a dozen trees it will pay to have a barrel-pump,
to be set on a wagon or sled, and run by two men. Effective
work can be done with this, and many orchards containing a
couple of thousand trees depend on two or three such outfits,
yet it is poor economy to use this type of sprayer for more than
a hundred and fifty ten-year-old trees.

Variations of this form of sprayer are to have the pump and
the barrel or tank mounted on a frame and two wheels of its
own, either as low as possible, to pass over stumps, etc., or as
high as a man's head, to aid in getting pressure. The high type
is best on land that is nearly level, but the low type is necessary
on hillsides, on account of the danger of upsetting. Whether
the mounting be on wheels, sled or wagon, the tank barrel
or other shape, and made of wood or steel, the pumps hori-
zontal or perpendicular, the handle long or short, red or green,
the air pressure is got by working the lever by hand.

Every man who has a hundred and fifty or more ten-year-old
trees, or a larger number of younger ones, should get a power
sprayer. The advantage of securing the pressure from an
engine instead of from man-power are many. The pressure from
an engine on the average is about twice as high and more regu-
lar than with hand pumps, insuring better work; the engine
does not get tired; and two or three nozzle-men can give all
their attention to reaching every leaf and twig with the liquid.
With a power outfit you can get over the whole orchard during
the limited time in which spraying needs to be done — you will
not have to start too early and continue too late.

There are many types of power sprayers, some with engines
and pumps on skids, to be mounted on a sled or wagon with a
tank, but the best are those on low, broad wheels of their own,
with a cut-under frame that permits short turning; a steel tank
holding about two hundred and fifty gallons, hung no higher
than two feet from the ground, and the engine and pump at
one end of this, preferably in front. The tank should contain
a geared agitator. The pump and all other machinery should
be taken apart easily for removing clogging materials or for
repairs and cleaning. A tower built over the tank, with a

79

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

platform about ten feet from the ground, will help in reaching
the high limbs. Light draft is an important consideration,
and both weight and wheels influence this.

Pumps and engines with several cylinders are better than
those with but one cylinder, although the majority of power
sprayers — good ones too — rely on one -cylinder engines and
pumps. Whatever the size, from knapsack to six-hundred-gal-
lon, twenty-five-horse-power sprayers, insist on strong, durable
construction. Pump valves should be of brass, or better, of
bronze, and tanks usually should be of steel. Wood is good,
but too heavy. Other passible materials will be corroded by the
chemicals in a season or two. Bordeaux is harder on steel than
lime, but is used less.

What is known as the central charging system has a pumping
and mixing plant, and a dozen or more compression tanks.
These tanks are nearly filled with spray mixture, and, after
charging, several tanks can be hauled to the orchard, where
one is loaded on a light spraying wagon, hose and nozzles
attached, and the spraying done from stored-up pressure. This
system saves much time in a large orchard. The spraying crew
keeps right at work all the time. The cost of installing such a
plant is about $2,500, including central engine and pump, and
tanks.

When buying a sprayer of any size, get the catalogues of the
makers who advertise in farm and fruit magazines and books.
There is a wealth of education in these. By studying the situa-
tion in the catalogues and by writing to makers, you can select
intelligently that which suits you best. But do not buy a pump
that is too small, and do insist on getting one that will do good
work at the start and for ten years or more. Better stick to
the kinds known to be reliable.

There are many different kinds of nozzles. Your sprayer
will be fully equipped with necessary attachments when it
comes from the manufacturers, and experience will teach the
need of additional nozzles, hose, extensions that may be used
for easiest work. Clogging of nozzles is a great trouble. Some
nozzles deliver the spray more effectively than others — that
is, so it will reach farther and will spread better over leaves
and bark. You will need plenty of nozzles, so you can change
quickly for a different mixture or on account of accidents.

The directions here tell pretty plainly what mixture to use
for each purpose, but you must become familiar with handling
the chemicals themselves before you will be able to use materials
most quickly, cheaply and efficiently. Beginners always will
do well to buy and use reliable commercial sprays, at least
until they better understand everything about killing "bugs."

Many orchardists who have large numbers of trees depend
wholly on some of the excellent prepared mixtures supplied by
responsible chemical makers. For less than fifty or a hundred
trees, it is often cheaper in any case to buy ready-mixed spray
materials than to mix them at home. The great advantage of
dependable commercial sprays is that the materials are pure,
are properly combined, and that you are given specified direc-

80

Note the tower on wagon frame, and the long nozzle rod for high limbs.

Types of nozzles and of barrel pump. Have plenty of nozzles.

Six-year orchard. Small picture shows compressor for putting lid on bushel apple boxes.

In proper storage-houses, apples keep well in bulk if rushed to storage when picked.

8l

"Take home" baskets should be given more attention. Face barrels like this,

Low trees are easy to pick from. Picking baskets should have turn-down handles.

Packing-shed in peach orchard. Processed peaches that bring good prices.

Use diagonal pack, and tissue wrapping to deliver apples to consumer in good shape.

82

LIVING ENEMIES OF TREES

tions for applying them for each class of enemies. You do not
have to study the "bugs," the spray, and the time to spray.

You could spray for each class of enemy — go over the trees
once for each kind — but by combining the different materials
properly, you can make two or three or four sprayings a season
do all the work. With some one or two or three standard mix-
tures for the different classes of enemies, as bases, you can add
poisons or other materials and strengthen or weaken them,
and in this way meet all the conditions.

Suppose, for instance, that you buy or make the standard
lime-sulphur mixture. Properly diluted, this will be your
dormant San Jose scale spray; diluted still more, with arsenate
of lead added, or made in the self-boiled form (generally
best), with the lead, it is the thing for spraying buds and blos-
soms— the poison killing codlin moth and curculio, the lime-
sulphur controlling fungi and sucking insects. Combinations
of various kinds can be made to suit the occasions. That is
where study and experience count.

Elevated tanks for both water and mixture are great savers
of labor and time. With them you can quickly fill sprayer
tanks by gravity without pumping or dipping. Mixing can be
done both by gravity and by pumps. Run two streams of
different materials into one vessel at the same time, with force
if possible, and mixing will be thorough. Do the final mixing
in spraying-tank. Some of the power outfits are equipped to
mix materials with their pumps or with the agitator. The
engine will do it more completely and more quickly than it can
be done by hand.

Our final word to you on spraying is this: keep posted.
Spraying knowledge has reached an advanced stage, yet much
progress is made every year. A few years ago, when we knew
little about spraying, we had to take various roundabout
courses to accomplish results. As our understanding of the
subject grows more complete, we take many shorts cuts. Many
a ten dollars can be cut off the cost of thorough spraying by
knowing all about a certain habit of this or that enemy, and by
knowing the exact effect of some mixtures on the pests. What
we think is a good spray this year, may be replaced by a better
one next year. We must keep informed.

The farm and fruit papers and magazines, new fruit books,
state and national experiment stations and chemical com-
panies continually are supplying new and valuable information
about enemies and about how to overcome them. Be sure to
get all the state and government bulletins, and all the books
that you can find or can afford to buy. Read them, and make
notes of what impresses you as valuable for use in your orchard.
One season of this will educate you and enable you to work out
a plan by which you can do your work at the least expense and
with the greatest results. During the winter is the time to
plan the next season's spraying. Go to your trees often. Get
a magnifying glass and learn to identify the various scales and
insects. When you know the enemies, and watch the trees, all
bad infectations can be prevented.

83

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

INDEX OF MATERIALS TO USE IN CONTROL-
LING INSECTS AND FUNGI. AND OF
WHEN TO APPLY

REMEDIES ARE NUMBERED IN THE FORMULAS PO! JjOWING

The principal insects and fungous diseases seriously affecuag
each fruit are the following, which are named as nearly as
possible in the order of the time they will appear. In iso-
ated communities there may be heavy infestations of some
usually unimportant trouble, but it will come under one of the
three classes, and can be remedied by the material mentioned as
a remedy for others in that same class. If spraying for the enemies
named here is done thoroughly, little attention need be paid to
some few less serious ones, because they will be disposed of
without additional sprayings directed solely at them.

APPLE

Sucking Insects Chewing Insects Fungous Diseases

San Jos6 Scale Codlin Moth Scab

Oyster Shell and Curculio Cedar Rust

Scruffy Scales Borers Leaf Spots

Plant Lice (Aphides) Canker Worms Cloud and Blotch

Teat Caterpillars Bitter Rot

San Jose Scale. Concentrated lime-sulphur solution or
miscible oil during the dormant period; that is, from two or
three weeks after the leaves fall till the beginning of growth
in spring. Mild days during fall, winter or spring should be
selected for spraying. Lime-sulphur is almost always the best
treatment. During summer the use of self-boiled lime-sulphur,
or of diluted lime-sulphur solution with arsenate of lead, will
hold scale in check.

Other Scales. Lime-sulphur solution or miscible oils early
in spring, followed by soap solution in May and in August,
when scale insects hatch and move.

Codlin Moth. First brood appears first about blooming time,
second brood three or four weeks later. Use arsenate of lead
after blossom petals fall and while calyx is open (a period of
about ten days); again, for second brcod, three weeks after
first treatment.

[NOTE. — The codlin moth treatment should be combined with the
second and third sprayings for scab. Use strong lead solution — two to two
and one-half pounds of paste to fifty gallons.]

Curculio. Appears about the time for second spraying
for codlin moth (third for scab) and is controlled by it. Arsenate
of lead in some mixture three weeks after petals fall.

Plant Lice, or Aphides. Some seasons they cause great injury
to foliage and fruit. They are sucking insects, and can be con-
trolled by weak soap solutions, or weak solutions of miscible
oil, if the application is made as soon as they appear. They
increase with wonderful rapidity, and work largely on the under
side of leaves, making the leaves curl up. Spraying must be
done early or it will be impossible to kill them. Spraying before

SPRAYING MATERIALS AND DATES

buds burst with lime-sulphur solution helps to keep them away.

Canker Worms. There are two distinct species: the spring
canker worms and the fall canker worms; both are leaf-eating
insects. Use arsenate of lead. The spring worm in nearly all
cases will be controlled by the Codlin Moth sprayings. The
fall worm is controlled by arsenate of lead in water, applied
when insects appear.

Tent Caterpillar. The apple-tree tent caterpillar moths
appear usually the first two weeks in July, in northern Atlantic
states, and deposit eggs. These eggs hatch in spring, usually
about the last of April, and the worms begin constructing nests
at once. Spray with arsenate of lead when the worms appear.
One thorough spraying will kill them all.

Scab. One of the earliest of fungous diseases to appear.
Use diluted lime-sulphur solution combined with arsenate of
lead, or self-boiled lime-sulphur with arsenate of lead. Apply
first just after cluster buds open and before bloom opens; second
spraying, about ten days after blossom petals fall; third spray-
ing, three weeks after second. (The arsenate of lead in the second
and third sprayings controls codlin moth, curculio, etc.,
besides adding to the fungicidal value of the lime-sulphur, and
preventing the diluted solution from burning foliage.)

Cedar Rust. Appears about the same time as scab, and
spraying dates are about the same. Its injury is most serious
on leaves of York Imperial. It also attacks fruit on Ben Davis
and other varieties considerably. Cut out all cedar trees in
the vicinity. Lime-sulphur and bordeaux are only partly success-
ful in controlling it. The only material that has ever showed
over 75 per cent efficiency against cedar rust is Atomic sulphur.

Leaf Spots. These include several different kinds, but, for
the purpose of spraying, may be considered as one. They ap-
pear about the time of the second spraying for scab. In sections
where any one species may severely attack some variety, two
or three additional sprayings may be required for control. The
first two sprayings are the same as the second and third for
scab, and the others should follow at intervals of about three
weeks.

Sooty Fungus (Apple Cloud), Fly Speck Fungus, Blotch, etc.
These troubles are remedied by the sprayings for scab, etc.
Diluted lime-sulphur solution to which is added arsenate of
lead, or self-boiled lime-sulphur with arsenate of lead, will do
the work. Bordeaux is seldom needed, and never should be
used before the fruit has reached the size of hickory nuts.

Bitter Rot. Chiefly a disease of the fruit, but attacks branches
of trees also. Bordeaux Mixture is the most effective remedy
for this trouble. Lime-sulphur will show only about 50 to 60
per cent efficiency against it. Spray first about July i, with
Bordeaux Mixture with arsenate of lead added; second, repeat
in three weeks; third, repeat about the middle of August. In
wet seasons a fourth spraying is sometimes needed. The arsen-
ate of lead may be omitted in third and fourth sprayings.

[NOTE. — Do not use Bordeaux on tender fruit and leaves — it will surely
russet them; use lime-sulphur iu proper form instead.]

85

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

Blight. This must be cut out quickly, whenever it appears,
and tools washed after every few cuts with a strong antiseptic.

ASPARAGUS

Insects Fungous Diseases

Asparagus Beetle Rust

Rose Chafer

Asparagus Beetle and Rose Chafer are both chewing insects,
and are controlled best by arsenite of zinc. This is best applied
in a fungicide (use one and one-half to two pounds in fifty
gallons), but never must be used on cutting beds, as it is a
deadly poison. If necessary to combat the insects on cutting
beds, hellebore may be used if given a week on the plants in
which to lose its strength, before the plants are sold.

Rust. Use diluted lime-sulphur solution or self-boiled
lime-sulphur; make either only three-fourths as strong as for
spraying apple.

[NOTE. — Owing to the spindly nature of asparagus, effective spraying
is very hard. This must be fully realized and efforts made in proportion,
or results will be only partially successful.]

CHERRY

Sucking Insects Chewing Insects Fungous Diseases

San Jos6 Scale Tent Caterpillar Brown Rot

Plant Lice Canker Worms Leaf Spot

Curculio

San Jose Scale. Treat exactly the same as you do on apple.

Plant Lice. Spray when they appear with weak solution of
soap or oil.

Tent Caterpillar. Arsenate of lead as directed for same
trouble on apple.

Canker Worm. Arsenate of lead when worms appear.

Curculio. Arsenate of lead after bloom is down, and repeat
in two weeks.

Brown Rot. Use diluted lime-sulphur solution with arsenate
of lead, or self-boiled lime-sulphur with arsenate of lead. First
spraying must be while leaves are unfolding. A second and
third spraying should follow at intervals of two or three weeks.

Leaf Spot, etc., will be covered by spraying for brown rot.

[NOTE. — Arsenate of lead must not be used within a month of ripening
time, owing to danger of poisoning those who eat the fruit. Use hellebore
if poisons are needed later than this.]

CURRANT AND GOOSEBERRY

These fruits are subject to attacks from a few of the same
enemies that attack fruit trees, and the remedies are the same
in each case, both in material and time to apply. Use combi-
nations of lime-sulphur in proper form, with arsenate of lead,
or soap or miscible oil solutions in their places.

86

SPRAYING MATERIALS AND DATES

GRAPE

Sucking Insects Chewing Insects Fungous Diseases

Leaf Hopper Blue Beetle Black Rot

Berry Moth Anthracnose

Curculio Mildews

Roootworm

Leaf Hopper. Must be sprayed before young can fly, with
solutions of soap or oil.

Blue Beetle, Berry Moth Larva, Rootworm, and Curculio
Larva are chewing insects, and are controlled by arsenate of
lead. First spraying for them should be before blossoms
come; second spraying after fruit sets, and third in July. Com-
bine the lead with a fungicide whenever possible.

Black Rot. Attacks leaves first, then berries. Bordeaux
Mixture is the most effective remedy in most cases. Lime-sul-
phur in proper form, combined with arsenate of lead, should be
used oftener than it has been in the past. Spray first when
buds begin to open; second, just after new shoots appear, before
blossoms open; third and additional spraying should take
place every ten days or two weeks until five or six applications
have been made. If the disease shows near ripening time, use
ammoniacal copper carbonate, because it will not russet the fruit.

Anthracnose. Difficult to control. Spraying material and
dates correspond to those for Black Rot, except that the work
should be done even more thoroughly.

Mildews. Materials and dates for spraying the same as
for Black Rot. Two or three sprayings will control mildews;
first one before blossoms open; second, after fruit has set; and
third, ten to fourteen days later.

PEAR

The sucking insects, the chewing insects and the fungous
diseases which attack pear are practically the same as those
that attack apple, and are controlled by the same treatment.
Pear, therefore, need to be sprayed while dormant with con-
centrated lime-sulphur for controlling scales, when buds open
and when blossoms open with combined insecticide and fungi-
cide, and later, sometimes, with Bordeaux for rot. Pear foliage
is tough, and will stand strong sprays.

PEACH

Sucking Insects Chewing Insects Fungous Diseases

i San Jos6 Scale Curculio Leaf Curl

I>canium Seal-; Scab

Aphis Brown Rot

San Jose Scale. Kill by spraying in dormant period with
concentrated lime-sulphur solution. Hold in check during
summer with self-boiled lime-sulphur or diluted lime-sulphur
solution to which is added arsenate of lead.

[NOTE. — Peach foliage is more tender than apple. All foliage sprays for
peach should be only from one-half to three-fourths as strong as for the
corresponding trouble on apple. This is very important, and must not be
overlooked.]

8?

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

Lecanium Scale. Use miscible oil in spring, just before
buds open. Caution is necessary in the use of oils on peach.
They will burn foliage badly if the least bit too strong.

Aphis. Use soap solution when noticed.

Curcullo. Appears about the time blossom shucks are
shedding. Spray with arsenate of lead in some combination,
and again in four or five weeks if there seems to be need of it.

[NOTE. — Peach foliage is tender, and the arsenate of lead must be
weaker than for apple spraying. Using one and one-half pounds of paste
to fifty gallons of other mixture.]

Leaf Curl. Is controlled by dormant lime-sulphur spray, ap-
plied just before buds begin to swell. This is the same treat-
ment given San Jose Scale in spring.

Scab. Self-boiled lime-sulphur and arsenate of lead, applied
about two weeks after the blossom shucks go down, and again
two weeks after that.

Brown Rot. Controlled by the treatment given for scab.
May require an earlier and a later spraying with a fungicide.
Be sure to cover the twigs and fruit all over, especially with
the later sprayings.

PLUM

The principal enemies of plum are the same as those of peach,
and must be treated the same for successful control. Plum
foliage is more tender than apple foliage, but not quite so tender
as peach, and the benefit of slightly stronger spray material
than peach will stand can be utilized if needed.

QUINCE

Quince enemies, with treatment for them, are exactly the
same as for apple or cherry. The foliage is relatively tough,
and the enemies are easily overcome by the proper measures.
Quince will be attacked more than apple, however, if not
sprayed, therefore we can say that spraying is more important
with quince than with apple or pear.

STRAWBERRY, RASPBERRY, TOMATO AND OTHER
SMALL FRUITS

Many of the enemies that attack the large fruits also attack
these. Rusts and blights, however, are especially bad on some
small-fruit foliage and canes. For control of these there is
nothing better than self-boiled lime-sulphur. If chewing insects
are present, as they nearly always are to some extent, the
addition of arsenate of lead to the fungicide will kill them. The
time of application of the fungicide is just before leaves come
out, and again when leaves are half-grown. A third applica-
tion can be made when canes are six inches high, but none must
ever go on mature canes of raspberry and blackberry, particu-
larly. The time to apply poison for insects is when they are
first noticed, or about the time petals fall, and again in two
or three weeks. On tomatoes, lime-sulphur may be sprayed on

88

FORMULAS FOR SPRAYING MIXTURES

the fruit from the time it has set until six weeks later, if needed
for anthracnose.

OUTSIDE INFECTION

Spray brush, trees and plants of all kinds near your fruit
trees. Only by doing this can you completely protect the fruit
and trees from enemies. Ornamentals, windbreaks and hedges
often are nurseries for large crops of insects and fungi. Make it
a rule to remove useless trees about an orchard, and spray all
that remain with a combined fungicide and poison a couple
of times each season. The best times will likely be, for the first
spraying while dormant; second, when leaves are half-grown.
Cut down all red cedar trees, anyhow.

FORMULAS

Here follow directions for making every kind of spray
material that will be needed. The process of making them re-
quires some equipment, knowledge and skill. Where large
amounts are to be used, and where the pure materials can be
bought at wholesale prices, it is undoubtedly cheaper to mix
the chemicals at home than to buy prepared mixtures.

If you know how to boil or otherwise combine the chemicals
so they shall make a mixture of just the right strength, and how
to dilute properly for each condition or enemy, you are safe
in making your own spraying materials. But if you do not
know of these things, if there is a doubt in your mind about
any of the amounts, or of the processes of manufacture, better
by far buy a well-known brand of commercial spray material.
A great many orchardists who know how to mix the elements
prefer to buy their sprays ready-made because of the greater
certainty of getting pure materials and correct, uniform manu-
facture and strength.

The "strength" of many spraying mixtures and solutions
depends so often more on the mixing process than on the amounts
of the different materials used that skill in the manufacturing
process may mean many dollars to the user. The way the
various chemicals combine, the bi-products formed and changes
made by their combining, the temperatures at which they are
mixed and tested, all have much influence on the final product.
We cannot insist too strongly on good spraying mixtures.

FUNGICIDES

i. Self-boiled Lime -Sulphur. Eight pounds of fresh lump
lime (quicklime), eight pounds of sulphur (flour, flowers, or
powder), water 50 gallons.

Put the lime in a vessel and pour on enough water to cover
it. Add the sulphur, either finely sifted or made into a thick
paste with water, as soon as the lime begins to slake and boil.
Different limes vary in heat-producing power. Good stone

89

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

lime gets very hot at once; partly slaked or slow lime will not
heat up so quickly nor so much.

Ordinarily the mixture should boil about ten minutes; care
must be taken lest the boiling goes too far. During this time
the mixture should be stirred constantly. At the end of the
ten minutes, or as soon as all the lime is slaked, add cold water
to the mixture and stop further boiling. If the mixture is al-
lowed to remain hot ten or fifteen minutes after slaking is
completed, the sulphur will combine with the lime and form
sulphides which will burn foliage, particularly peach leaves.

This solution can be left standing for a year, if desired, or
is ready to use at once. To the mixture, made as directed here,
add enough water to make fifty gallons; then strain, so it will
work through pumps and nozzles, and apply.

Self-boiled lime-sulphur is one of the best mixtures we have
for scab, rust, some rots and many similar enemies. It is very
effective as a summer spray to hold the scales in check until
they can be cleaned up with the stronger fall and spring spray.
It forms one of the best bases to which poison can be added for
killing chewing insects.

2. Dilute Lime-Sulphur Solution. |The regular concentrated
lime-sulphur (stock solution) mixture (formula 7), either home-
boiled or commercial, can be diluted in proportions of one and
one-half gallons of mixture to fifty gallons of water, and to this
two pounds of arsenate of lead added, to be used in place of the
self -boiled lime-sulphur. Some authorities recommend a hydrom-
eter to test the specific gravity of the lime-sulphur mixture,
but this test is unreliable and misleading unless all conditions
are just right. This solution (for foliage spraying) should test
1.1015 to i.oi specific gravity. Never neglect to include the lead
when diluting the No. 7 solution for summer work. Lead is
needed in the mixture to prevent burning foliage.

3. Dilute Lime-Sulphur Solution. Commercial or home-
boiled concentrated lime-sulphur solution, (7), still more
dilute, with about one gallon mixture in fifty to sixty gallons
of water, and with the lead added, is useful on the tenderest
kinds of foliage, which the stronger solutions will burn. The
proper strength of this mixture (home-boiled) will test 1.005
specific gravity.

[NOTE. — Hydrometer tests of commercial solutions are not to be de-
pended on. Follow directions given by the makers to get proper strength.]

4. Bordeaux Mixture. There are three strengths of Bor-
deaux Mixture, called standard Bordeaux, weak Bordeaux and
strong Bordeaux. Standard Bordeaux contains three pounds
of copper-sulfate (blue vitriol or bluestone), four pounds of
fresh stone lime (quicklime), and fifty gallons of water. Weak
Bordeaux Mixture contains one and one-half pounds of copper-
sulfate, three pounds of lime and fifty gallons of water. Strong
Bordeaux contains five pounds copper-sulfate, five pounds of
lime and fifty gallons of water.

Put the copper-sulfate into a burlap bag; to dissolve it, hang
this overnight just beneath the surface of a vessel half full of
water. It also may be dissolved in boiling water, using at least

90

FORMULAS FOR SPRAYING MIXTURES

a quart of water to the pound of blucstone. Slake the lime in
enough water to prevent it from burning. When you have a
smooth milk of lime, add enough water to make twenty-five
gallons. Do the same with the few gallons of copper-sulphur
solution, and pour the diluted solutions together. The solu-
tions never must be mixed with concentrated, although diluting
one before joining them will avoid the trouble caused, if care
is taken to keep the proportions right.

Air-slaked lime should not be used in making Bordeaux
Mixture. It is best to slake lime and keep it in the form of
paste or putty. In this condition it can be kept indefinitely if
covered with an inch or two of water. Use three times as much
of this lime paste, by weight, as of fresh stone lime. A good
plan is to cover the bottom of a flat trough a couple of inches
deep with lime and work this into a putty. You can calculate
how much of this you need to make the proper proportions, and
then take a brick of the required size from the trough, as needed.
The lime also can be dissolved in water and kept — one pound
of lime to a gallon of water. Add water to replace evaporation.

The copper-sulphate can be dissolved in the same way — one
pound to the gallon — and kept until spraying time. To make
the spraying mixture, in any strength desired, simply use one
gallon of each of these solutions instead of a pound of the
respective materials. But always dilute before putting the
stock solutions together. After it is made, Bordeaux will not
keep for any length of time. No more should be mixed than
will be used each day. If stock solutions are prepared, Bor-
deaux can be mixed on short notice. With good lime there will
be no danger of burning the foliage at the strengths given here
when this Bordeaux is used on the different kinds of trees ac-
cording to directions.

Should there be any doubt, you can test the strength, or
rather test for free acid, by holding a clean, bright knife-blade
in the Bordeaux mixture for about a minute. If the blade
becomes coated with copper, more lime must be added. Another
test is to pour a small quantity of the Bordeaux into a vessel
and blow your breath on it. If it is made properly a thin white
film (of calcium carbonate) will form on the surface. If the
breath will not produce this, add more lime.

5. Ammoniacal Copper Carbonate. Five ounces of copper
carbonate, three pints of ammonia which tests 26° Baume,
fifty gallons of water.

Dilute the ammonia with five or six quarts of water. Make
a paste, with water, of the copper carbonate. Pour the am-
monia solution over the paste, using just enough to dissolve
it. Do not use more than is needed for this, but, if any carbonate
remains undissolved after standing a few minutes, add a little
more of the ammonia solution. This mixture may be kept without
spoiling. For the working solution add water to make fifty
gallons. This is clear blue mixture that will not stain ripe fruit.
It should eithej be sprayed on before picking or the fruit dipped
in it as soon as picked, then rushed into storage. It can be used
where Bordeaux will russet fruit.

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FR|UIT

INSECTICIDES FOR CHEWING INSECTS

6. Arsenate of Lead. This poison can be bought in the form
of a stiff, white paste, ready to use by diluting one to three
pounds of this paste with fifty gallons of water. The paste
usually comes in kegs or cans, and nearly every one will find it
the best form to buy. Care must be taken that this paste does
not dry out. It will not do this if the surface is kept covered
with an inch or two of water.

The home-mixed poison is made as follows, but, though
it is possible to make it cost a little less than the commercial
paste, home manufacture is seldom advisable. Four ounces of
arsenate of soda, eleven ounces of acetate of lead and eighteen
gallons of water are the materials. Dissolve the arsenate of
soda in two quarts of water, in a wooden vessel. Then dissolve
the acetate of lead in four quarts of water in another wooden
vessel, and when this process is finished pour the two solutions
into the required amount of water in the spraying tank.

This spray will be milk-white. It is the most efficient remedy
for chewing insects, and it may be added to the lime-sulphur,
Bordeaux or other spray. In doing this, if you have dissolved
the foregoing amounts in the six quarts of water, add them
separately to fifteen gallons of the other mixture — larger and
smaller amounts in the same proportion; or, mix two pounds of
the commercial paste in fifty gallons.

INSECTICIDES FOR SUCKING INSECTS

7. Standard Lime-Sulphur Mixture. Lime-sulphur mixtures
are made and sold by chemical companies. When prepared by
reliable people, they are recommended, and will give the very
best of satisfaction. Directions for diluting and using each will
accompany the solution. Generally about one gallon of the
concentrated commercial solution to eight gallons of water will
be what is required for a dormant spray. As noted before, there
are great differences in the value of different lime-sulphur
solutions that are due to differences in process of manufacture,
and not to varying amounts of lime or of sulphur. It is a chemi-
cal composition of the final product, a chemical fusing of the
elements, that makes the differences more than anything
else. If you haven't many trees, it is always cheaper and
less bother to buy prepared lime-sulphur, and many times
it is so with large orchards to spray. Unless you prepare
your own solution very carefully, you will not have nearly
so good material as that you can buy.

For the home-boiled solution, use fifteen pounds of fresh
stone lime, fifteen pounds of sulphur and fifty gallons of water.
Slake the lime in an iron kettle in which the mixture is to be
boiled, using enough water to cover the lime. (Don't use copper
kettle.) Better make a paste of the sulphur before you put it
in, or at least sift it thoroughly. Stir while adding the sulphur,
which should go in while the lime is slaking, then add ten or

92

FORMULAS FOR SPRAYING MIXTURES

fifteen gallons of water and boil this mixture for about an hour,
or until the mixture becomes a deep orange-red or a deep green.
It may take on either of these colors; lime never seems to act
twice alike in this respect. Add enough water to bring the
volume of the mixture up to fifty gallons and it is ready to use.
This solution should test about 1.04 specific gravity.

Both the commercial and the home-made mixture, at the
strength directed here, are to be used only on dormant trees,
and must not be used on foliage. At this strength it will burn
nearly all the leaves off if it is applied after the buds open, but
it is no stronger than needed for winter work. Properly diluted
and with arsenate of lead added, lime-sulphur is a most valuable
summer spray. See formulas. Numbers i, 2 and 3 (self-boiled
lime-sulphur and diluted lime-sulphur solutions must be added
to prevent burning foliage).

8. Kerosene Emulsion. Make a stock solution with one-half
pound of hard soap, one gallon of hot water (soft) and two
gallons of kerosene. Chip the soap fine and dissolve it in hot
water. Take the vessel away from the stove and from any fire
and add the kerosene while the water is still boiling hot. Im-
mediately churn this thoroughly, or better, pump it violently
back into the vessel until it forms a creamy emulsion. When
only a small quantity of the spray is wanted, sour milk can be
substituted for soap and water.

For various purposes you must have various strengths of
kerosene emulsion. To dilute for an eight per cent solution, use
one gallon of this concentrated mixture in seven gallons of water;
to make a ten per cent emulsion, use one gallon with five gallons
of water; to make a four per cent emulsion, use one gallon with
fifteen gallons of water. The four per cent emulsion can be
used without damage on the tenderest foliage, while the ten
per cent emulsion will do good work when trees are dormant.

9. Soluble or Miscible Oils. Chemical manufacturers
prepare brands of oil so treated that they fuse readily with
cold water. They make efficient and useful sprays, but must
be used with caution. When they are too strong, they cause
serious injury to plants or trees. In winter, for San Jose Scale,
they do excellent work; and in summer, for various enemies
requiring a spray of this character, they are many times ad-
visable. It is best to get information about the strength at
which to spray from the maker of the oil you use, but for the
winter spray a strength of one part oil in fifteen parts water
almost always will be right.

10. Soap Solutions. These make a valuable spray for hold-
ing in check San Jose and other scales during the summer, and
for various other sucking insects. One pound of hard soap in
four gallons of water, or one pound of whale oil soap in five gal-
lons of water, is the right strength for dormant trees. In any
case, dissolve the soap in about one gallon of hot, soft water, then
add the remainder of water cold, stirring hard.

11. Tobacco. Can be obtained in several forms — as a
liquid, a powder, or in stems, to be used according to conditons.
The essential poison of tobacco (sulphate of nicotine) is ex-

93

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

tracted and appears on the market in several forms. "Black
Leaf," "Nicofume," and "Tobacine," can be bought and made
into sprays for orchard insects, such as woolly aphis, green aphis,
and some of the other bugs which have to be killed by contact.
The sulphate of nicotine can be bought pure and mixed into
spray material, also. A tobacco decoction can be made by
steeping one pound of tobacco leaves or stems in two gallons
of water for a few days; or by boiling a quantity of tobacco
about one-half hour in enough water to cover it, then dilute
with water to make a volume of two gallons for each pound of
tobacco used.

COMBINED INSECTICIDES AND FUNGICIDES

12. Bordeaux Mixture and Arsenate of Lead. Mix two

pounds of arscnate of lead with fifty gallons standard Bordeaux
Mixture. First dissolve the arsenate as directed before. The
sticky qualities of this new mixture will keep the Bordeaux
on the tree longer than it would remain otherwise. This is
a very good spray and does not cost much.

13. Lime-sulphur and Arsenate of Lead. Mix two pounds
of arsenate of lead with fifty gallons of self-boiled lime-sulphur
or of concentrated lime-sulphur solution diluted, one and a half
gallons to fifty gallons of water (arsenate of lead always must
be added to diluted standard lime-sulphur solutions).

RABBITS, MICE AND BORERS

Borers attack nearly all kinds of fruit trees, but do most
damage to apple and peach trees. They fairly revel in locust
and many other forest trees, and some kinds of bushes harbor
them. There are three or more kinds. One has a flat, black
head; another a round, black head. These two work in apple
trees. They are supposed to live on the inner layer of bark of
the trunk, near the surface of the ground, but their tunnels
sometimes extend entirely through the tree and for more than
a foot up and down.

Peach borers are soft, yellowish worms with a reddish brown
head. They do not usually go so deep into the wood as do apple
borers, but live just under the bark. Either kind can be located
by the sawdust made, and in peach, etc., by gum, which
comes from the hole where borers entered. Peach borers
hatch in June or July from eggs laid on the trunks of trees.
The young either eat their way in where they were hatched,
or drop to the ground and enter the trunk at the surface of
the soil. This kind stays in the trunk one year only, but the
other two kinds will remain in from one to three years, growing
bigger and eating larger tunnels all the time.

Go over all your trees, but particularly those younger than
eight years, every March and October. You can locate the
borers by their sawdust, by a blackened spot in the bark, or
by the gum coming from their holes. Cut around the hole
a little with a sharp knife, and if you do not find the worms

94

FORMULAS FOR SPRAYING MIXTURES

right away, run a wire up or down the hole and mash them.
There will be from one to six in each infected tree. For many
trees, equip yourself with a machine oiler, and inject carbon-
bisulfide solution into the holes, then close them with grafting-
wax or soft clay.

To prevent borers from entering any kind of trees, apply
to the trunks, about the middle of June, the Whale Oil Soap
solution, No. 18, or Lime-Sulfur Solution, No. 15. Painting
the lower eighteen inches of trunks with pure white lead and
raw linseed oil will help, too. Apple borers, however, some-
times enter three or four feet from the ground, but these worms
never get very big. Salt and ashes, or tobacco dust, in a layer
a couple of inches deep about the base of the tree, will kill the
worms that drop off and try to reach the trunk.

Mice girdle trees by gnawing the bark off under the snow
(and sometimes during summer when grass grows or lies
close to the trunk), particularly when there is a crust that stays
on well into late winter. To prevent this damage, be sure to
draw all weeds or mulch of any kind back at least a foot from
the tree in August or September, and never allow any mulch
or grass closer than six inches to the trunk. The earth in this
open space should be heaped from three inches to a foot high
about the tree. Mice will not cross this open space. Tramp-
ing the snow about each tree before the mice begin working
also is a good plan.

Rabbits girdle trees above the snow, and usually do it late
in the spring, after the snow has been on the ground a long
time. Painting trunks with pure white lead and raw linseed
oil, as for borers, helps to prevent both mice and rabbits from
chewing the bark. Perfect protection is given by wooden
veneers on the market, made especially for wrapping trunks
of small trees. They cost about 75 cents a hundred. Strips
of tar paper, of wire screen or of wire cloth, cut five inches wide
and two feet long, then wrapped around a broom handle, so as
to make long, open-sided tubes that will spring around the trunk
are cheaper and very practical for this purpose.

The Lime-Sulfur solution many times will turn rabbits
away, and a mixture of blood and ashes will do this nearly
every time. By all means hunt down the rabbits. The boys
can set traps that will clean them out pretty well in one winter,
and you can form the habit of having a gun with you as you
work among your trees. You will be able to send many a
bunny to the Happy Hunting Grounds with it, and besides,
you will have lots of chances to shoot hawks, foxes and other
pests. Bridge-graft trees that have been girdled or partly
girdled. This operation can be done for twenty-five cents a
tree, and any good orchard tree in normal condition is worth
from $5 to $100. Cut whips of last year's growth and bevel
the ends so they will lie flat against the bark when the middle
is bowed out a little. Then slit the bark above and below the
wound, as is done in budding, and slip these beveled ends
in against the inner layer of bark. Cover this joint, and
whole wound if possible, with grafting-wax. That is all there

95

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

is to it. The tree will live and the bark will grow over the
wounds.

SUMMARY

Spraying is a vital necessity if money is to be made from
fruit. It doesn't pay to doubt this, and it doesn't pay to miss
one season, even if enemies are not visible.

Spraying has an invigorating effect on trees, besides con-
trolling enemies.

Knowledge of what to spray for, what mixtures to use and
when to apply is a necessity before spraying can be made effec-
tive.

There are three classes of enemies spraying will control —
chewing insects, sucking insects and fungi. Each class requires
a different remedy, but the remedies can be combined most of
the time.

Spraying during the dormant period is distinctly different
from spraying on foliage. Materials several times as strong
can be used and are needed to control the scales.

On account of life habits of enemies, often only two to four
days are available for any one spraying and the work must be
done then.

Put the material on with force and cover every inch of bark
and leaf.

Get a sprayer that is big enough, that will give 100 to 250
pounds air-pressure, that is adapted to your land and trees, and
that is durable. Get a power outfit, if possible, for it does
better work than a hand pump can.

The spraying program ordinarily resolves itself into two,
three or four applications — one while trees are dormant, with
lime-sulphur solution, and the others on blossoms and fruit
with self -boiled lime-sulphur, or diluted lime-sulphur, with
arsenate of lead added, or maybe with bordeaux and lead.
All applications must be guided by careful study.

The differences in spraying mixtures is one of chemical
combining of the materials, as well as of differences in quantity
of each material used. Be sure you get the right mixture.

Borers will attack fruit trees in spite of all we can do and
will kill many trees if left alone.

Trees must be gone over once each year, and should be gone
over each April and August.

Spraying and painting with lime-sulphur sediment will help
in keeping down the numbers of borers.

Keep trash and mulches at least six inches away from tree
trunks, and tramp snow about trees in late winter, to prevent
mice damage.

Always bridge-graft trees that have been girdled.

9<J

Miscellaneous

ORCHARD RECORDS

When you set out an orchard always make a chart of the
arrangement, giving a place and a number to each tree, then
record the numbers, variety and other data in a book. If you
fail to do this, you will know how good a forgetter you are when
you try to remember where you planted each kind. The in-
formation will be useful in a dozen ways. Take our word that
it is worth while, and keep the records accurately and completely.

To label each tree helps this plan and has other advantages.
One of the best ways is to cut heavy zinc into strips about ten
inches long, two inches wide at one end and coming to a point
at the other. Put these in vinegar for a few hours to corrode
them; when dry you can write on them with ink or with an
ordinary indelible lead pencil and the marks will stay on for
twenty years. Twist the little end of the tag loosely about a
limb, and let it hang down. Put on this tag the variety name,
the number, possibly the date planted, the number of bushels
harvested each year, date of blooming, and other useful data.
As the limb grows, loosen the loop a little, or remove the tag
to a smaller limb. This helps greatly in the successful handling
of an orchard.

CLIMBING CUTWORMS

Those little pests live in the soil and crawl up young trees
at night. They destroy the tender buds. The remedy is to
put a wrapping of cotton around the trunk of the tree a foot
or so from the ground; or better, build a "fence" of tarred
paper about the base of the tree. This should be about six
irches high, and should go an inch into the ground. Poisoned
bran mush at the base of trees is effective also.

GRAFTING

Trees which have proved untrue to name or of worthless
varieties should be top-worked with desirable kinds. This is
done by grafting eighteen or twenty scions on suitable limbs,
just as the bark first loosens in the spring. Be sure that the
cuttings you use come from the best trees of the best kinds.
Wild trees and seedlings about farms can be grafted likewise,
as can those good kinds which require cross-pollination. Use
good grafting wax, cut scions carefully, and put them in right,
and grafts will grow.

Bridge-grafting is explained in the talk on mice damage.
It has other uses, as with a tree which has been skinned badly
from any cause, a bad split that cannot be repaired by bolting,
etc. Try to get at least five or six of the bridges to growing.
Cover with grafting-wax the places of insertion and at least
the raw edges of bark. It is well to cover the whole surface
bared if you can get enough wax.

97

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

SPLIT FORKS

Should a tree split, draw the sections together with a rope
and pulleys, bore a hole through them and bolt them together.
This can be done by using one long bolt, or by using two short
ones with rings for heads, and connecting them with a wire
or chain. Some growers do not bore holes, but use screws
with ring heads. We have seen trees that had a complete
system of such supports, all the wires (from each limb) coming
together in the center of the head, on a strong ring. Do not
put a wire or chain around the limbs. It is possible to connect
two cross- growing limbs, or one leading toward an opposite
fork, so they will unite and form a natural brace.

WINDBREAKS FOR ORCHARDS

A windbreak will protect fruit trees from cold. In case of
late spring frost this is done by deflecting up over the trees
the downward flowing frosty air. The windbreak must not
be thick enough to produce a dead air space in its lee, as such
a condition will cause frosted blossoms every time. The break
must let some of the air through to keep up the motion through
the orchard.

With the more tender trees like peaches and plums, a wind-
break is of the greatest value, protecting the tender twigs and
buds from the most penetrating cold in times of high wind in
midwinter. In the summer and fall, half the fruit on heavily
loaded trees sometimes will be blown off if not protected by
a windbreak; but if protected the normal number of drops
will be diminished by at least half, while the damage from
storms will be largely eliminated.

Spraying and picking in unprotected orchards often have
to be stopped on windy days. Here a windbreak would enable
the operators to put the liquid where it is needed or enable
pickers to go ahead with their work. A windbreak will retain
snow and leaves and so prevent deep frosting and excessive
soil evaporation; will lessen breaking of trees and twigs under
loads of ice; will enable trees to grow straighter; will protect
blossoms from severe winds and so help pollination; and in
some cases will hasten the ripening of fruit.

Windbreaks will harbor insects to a certain extent, but not
if they are sprayed. If they are not planted far enough from
the outside rows of fruit trees they will rob them of plant food.
Plant the break at least forty feet from the nearest fruit trees.
Some advise that eighty or one hundred feet be left here, and
claim that the space will be well used.

Norway spruce, Scotch and Austrian pines and the arbor-
vitae make the best evergreen windbreak. California privet,
Lombardy poplars and maples made good deciduous windbreaks.
In some places it is desirable to have the break thick from the
ground up; in others it should be open at the bottom, and
thicker on a level with the foliage of the fruit trees.

The universal method of packing peaches for shipment, in the East,

Ray peaches thrive under many different conditions.

Grapes may be staked the first three years. After that trellises are better.

Kind of cherries that bring profits. Picture slightly reduced.
99

A home bed of strawberries adds wonderfully to home's attractions in June.

Glimpse of a commercial vineyard of 300 acres. Note cultivation, training, etc.

How to train grape-vines, at a home. Note bagging in upper right-hand corner.

A fine quince tree. Note method of training, perfect foliage and crop of fruit.

100

MISCELLANEOUS

The lay of your land will tell you where to plant the break,
and will determine its value. There are few orchards in which
a break will not benefit the fruit and trees, besides enhancing
the beauty of the place.

WHEN TREES WILL NOT BEAR

Here and there throughout the country are many fruit
trees of bearing age which never have produced a single fruit,
or at most a few imperfect ones. Everything that has been
said about the well-being of fruit trees is an answer to the ques-
tion, "How can we make these trees bear?"

First look to the condition of the soil. It may lack moisture,
or may be too wet. There may be rock or hard-pan close to
the surface, preventing root expansion. The soil may lack
some or all the plant-food elements, may lack dead vegetable
matter, friendly bacteria, or require a general loosening up
to a depth of four or five feet.

Explode a charge of dynamite under each tree, and three
or four others a few feet away. Mulch the surface with a thick
covering of vegetable matter, or by keeping a couple inches
of dust under the tree. Feed with commercial fertilizer.

The tree may be growing too fast. In that case reduce the
amount of nitrogen. It may be necessary also to reduce the
amount of moisture, but this should be avoided, unless there
is a decided excess of water, which should be drained away.

Your trees may lack,, cross-pollination. This is a frequent
cause of non-bearing. The remedy is to plant other kinds
near-by (see planting section), or top- work bearing trees with
one or two branches of other kinds, and the blossoms on these
will fertilize those on the rest of the tree. See that trees harbor
no scale nor other enemies.

Girdling sometimes is resorted to with success, as is also
notching deeply below fruit spurs. The method of girdling
is to press a heavy knife into the bark, making in this way a
cut entirely around the tree. This will not kill the tree. Other
practices are to take an eighteen-inch strip of bark from the
trunk a third or a fourth of the way around the tree; to twist
a wire tightly around the main limb or around the trunk;
or to prune the roots. This last is done by plowing deeply or
digging a ditch partly around the tree. More trees fail to
bear from lacking roots than from having too many roots.

These methods, although sometimes to be advised, seldom
are used by practised orchardists. It is much better to produce
bearing by handling the soil, supplying proper food, and by
proper cutting back. Bearing can be forced just as surely by
these methods, and at the same time the trees will receive
what they need in other ways. The good effects will thus be
permanent, instead of lasting only two or three years. In gen-
eral, winter or spring pruning is conducive to growth, while
summer pruning leads to bearing. If a tree has not been kept
pruned, shaping the head and cutting back will aid in making
it bear.

101

Special Things Needed by Each Fruit

foregoing part of this book explains those fundamental
J^ things which all trees require. Here following are details
of the few special needs in which fruits differ. Do not
attempt to be guided only by what is said here, in caring for
your orchard, but go back through the soil-handling, planting,
pruning and spraying chapters, and apply the suggestions given
there in connection with what you get here.

APPLE

Almost any soil will do for apples, but they succeed best on
clay loam. The subsoil should be no closer than four feet, if
you can get a soil of this kind. Many fine orchards, however,
are growing on land where the hard-pan is only eighteen or
twenty inches from the surface. Put your trees in the best land
you can get, but plant anyhow if your best land is not the most
favorable. A slope is better than a level, and the finest apples
always grow on high land. Read the chapters on Frost, on Mois-
ture Keeping and on Cultivation. In them you will find much
information about the best location for apples.

In all sections north of Delaware and Kentucky, spring
planting is best; but fall planting is successful, especially in the
South, if it is done at the right time. Trees for fall planting
should be ripened early in the nursery, and then planted at
once (there is only a week or two in the fall when planting
should be done), so they will grow a little before winter comes.
This is to give the roots a chance to get moisture with which to
replace winter evaporation, and to develop new roots during
winter. But in the North, under average conditions, the losses
of fall-planted trees will exceed those of trees planted in the
spring. Proper spring planting is always successful when done
early enough. It is better to get the trees during November
and December, heel them in, covering tops and all with dirt,
and then plant them the first day the ground is thawed. Heap
up dirt about trees twelve inches or more when planted very
early.

One-year trees almost always are best. There are many
reasons, but two are enough to prove this. One-year trees can
be pruned and headed the way you want them. This training
they are not likely to get in the nursery during the second
year, and that is the time when it must be done. And one-
year trees will be larger at the end of four years than will either
two- or three-year nursery trees planted in the orchard at the
same time.

Before you plant, read again all the entire matter on sub-
soiling and planting. Dig tree holes with dynamite, if possible.
This produces great results. Watch your trees carefully for the
first two years and prune them three times each season during
this time. Take especial pains to guard against mice and rab-
bits. Bridge-graft any trees that have been girdled. Never

102

SPECIAL THINGS NEEDED BY FRUITS

let three-year-old trees bear more than twenty apples, four-year-
old trees more than fifty, or five-year-old more than one hundred.
After five years, thin at the regular rate.

Pay attention to securing pollination of your apples. A
few varieties may have the power of fertilizing their own blos-
soms, but the larger number of kinds do not. Baldwin generally
is known as a kind that needs little outside help, yet in many
experiments where the bees and winds were prevented from
carrying pollen from other trees, a thousand Baldwin blossoms
would set only a half-dozen gnarly little apples.

By far the greatest trouble due to insufficient pollination
is not in the total failure to set fruit, but in the production of
knotty and crooked fruit. Freezing will cause apples to grow
crooked, but, in nine cases out of ten, they grow that way be-
cause the blossoms, while fertilized enough to start the fruit,
were not fertilized enough to give it vigor and vitality. The
individual fruits were cripples from the beginning. Therefore,
provide plenty of chances for cross-fertilizing in your orchards,
and do not depend upon trees of the same variety fertilizing each
other. See that each tree in the orchard has three or more
trees of one or more other kinds within a hundred and fifty
feet.

Care must be taken, also, to see that the different kinds in
the same section of the orchard bloom at the same time. We
know of one big orchard in which there are only two varieties.
One is through blooming before the other begins, so no benefit
is derived from having the two kinds together.

Two classes are enough into which to divide varieties accord-
ing to blooming habits. In both the early and late classes the
varieties will overlap each other sufficiently. But an early
bloomer and a late one could not help one another. Gideon,
Gravenstein, Early Ripe, Smokehouse, Stark, Arkansas Black,
Benoni, Chenango, Mclntosh, Maiden's Blush, Duchess,
M. B. Twig, Baldwin, King, Fallawater and others bloom early.
Wagner, Yellow Transparent, Spitzenburg, the Greenings,
Stayman's Winesap, Winesap, Gano, Williams' Early Red,
York Imperial, Rome Beauty, Ben Davis, Hubbardston, Jona-
than, Spy, Wealthy, Delicious, Missouri Pippin, etc., bloom
comparatively late.

These statements are based on observations in New York.
They might not be entirely correct in other localities. Watch
the trees in your neighborhood and make notes of when they
bloom. If you find your bearing orchard is suffering from a
lack of cross pollenization, start at once and top-work some of
the trees with other good varieties. In about three years you
can expect blossoms on these grafts or buds. When you plant
now, see that this trouble is avoided.

As to varieties — it depends on the elevation, the latitude,
the climate generally, the time of ripening desired, and the
purpose for which apples are wanted. Still the list is not very
large. Probably twenty-five varieties cover the good ones for
all conditions found between Florida and Ontario.

In the Piedmont and Blue Ridge sections and the Delaware

103

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

Peninsula, Winesap, Stayman's Winesap, Yellow Transparent,
Williams' Early Red, Grimes Golden, York Imperial, Rome
Beauty, Wealthy, Red Astrachan and Yellow Newton are the
kinds to plant. The first five of these are the cream of the list
for sections south of the Maryland line. In southern Pennsyl-
vania, West Virginia and similar localities all these kinds do
well, particularly Stayman, Rome Beauty and Grimes Golden;
while Jonathan, Stark, Delicious, Wagner, Nero, Hubbardston,
Mammoth Black Twig, and Duchess also reach perfection.
York Imperial and Ben Davis do well, but should not be planted,
because better kinds succeed as well.

As we go north, and as elevations get higher, many of these
varieties fall behind in size of fruit and thriftiness of tree. In
northern Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and similar localities,
Stayman, M. B. Twig and Delicious are of even better quality
than they are farther south, although they are not quite so
large. Duchess is finer here than anywhere else. Baldwin,
Spitzenburg, the Greenings, Stark, Winter Banana, Rome
Beauty, Spy, King and Mclntosh Red all succeed wonderfully
here. Mclntosh, Hubbardston, Baldwin, Stayman, Duchess and
the two Greenings do best at the higher elevations, while others
thrive best at the lower elevation of this section. Northern New
York, Michigan, Ontario and New England comprise another
belt in which Baldwin, Mclntosh, Spitzenburg, Spy and Green-
ings, Ingram, Stayman, Winter Banana, Duchess, Snow and
King are best.

We will not attempt to describe these varieties here. Har-
rison's regular catalogue gives detailed descriptions. The varie-
ties named ripen at all seasons and are adapted to various
purposes. We simply have told you the names of those few
kinds which we know are best for each section — kinds that are
standard and reliable. You can depend on this list, but if you
think of planting and are puzzled, write to us, giving full details,
and we will take up the matter with you personally.

The dangerous enemies of apples are as follows:

Apple Rust (or Cedar Rust), from r^d cedar trees. This
fungus does most of its damage in the Virginias. Destroy all
cedar trees in the vicinity. Apple Scab, a fungus, shows its
presence by greenish-brown spots which enlarge and run to-
gether, forming good-sized blotches. These later turn black.
On apples it makes scaly, blackish or cracked spots, and spoils
them for use.

Bitter Rot on fruit, and Canker on limbs, are due to fungi.
The small brown sunken spots spread quickly and cause the
whole apple to rot. Rotten spots are marked by rings, and
taste very bitter. Collar Blight of apple, caused by bacteria, is
almost the same as Fire Blight of pear, and should be treated
in the same way. Crown Gall (bacteria) attacks young trees
in the nursery. Its mark is a bunch of hairy roots, galls, knots
or corky enlargements near the crown. Remove the trees
affected.

Leaf Blight, or Frog Eye, a fungus, shows spots on leaves
that look like the eye or ear of a frog. The leaves turn brown

104

SPECIAL THINGS NEEDED BY FRUITS

at these spots, and drop early. Fire Blight (known as Pear Blight
or Twig Blight) is caused by bacteria. It begins at the end
buds on new wood, and literally walks down over the limbs.
Leaves die and hang on all summer. Sooty Blotch appears
as a smoky black deposit on nearly ripe fruit.

The Aphides, or Plant Lice, are small, green, soft-bodied
insects that live on young twigs and on the under sides of
leaves. They are sucking insects, and by boring into the stems
cause the leaves to die. Leaf Hoppers are handsome little
yellow and red bugs that suck the juice out of leaves; aphides
treatment kills them. Oyster Shell Scale is so called because
the covering over the eggs of these sucking insects resembles
that shell in shape and color; there are two broods a season.
Badly infected trees look rough and sickly.

San Jose Scale is a sucking insect. You can see it in winter
as a round, dark gray or black spot, the size of a fly speck, with
a spot or nipple at the center. When trees are infected badly,
a rough, scaly crust comes off when diseased twigs and bark
are rubbed. On fruit the spots are surrounded by a reddish
ring. The young, which begin to appear about the first of June,
are lemon-yellow at first, but soon cover themselves with white
scales and look like wood-ashes.

Woolly Aphis are sucking insects which infest the whole
tree, roots and all; they are covered with a mass of bluish-gray
fibers, like bunches of cotton. Bud Moths, when young, are
small, brown caterpillars with black heads, that chew the young
leaves and buds, which they bind together in their webs.
Canker Worms, or Measuring Worms, hatch from eggs about
the time the buds burst, and fe»d on the foliage for about four
weeks; they stay in the ground over winter and lay eggs on
twigs in the spring.

Curculios, as adult insects, appear in early spring and feed
on young foliage. They feign death when disturbed. The
eggs are laid in half-round cuts on the side of fruits. The young
bugs tunnel around within apples, pears, quinces, etc. These
are not the real apple worms, however, as those are the larvae of
the Codlln Moth. That insect hatches two broods a season.
The first eggs are laid on leaves or young fruit, then the worms
enter fruit at the blossom end; the second brood appears about
midsummer and enters the apple through the side. Control
the first crop and the second will give little trouble. This is
about the most destructive insect that attacks apples, but is
controlled easily.

After apple trees are cleaned up from accumulated damage
resulting from neglect, two sprayings a season ordinarily will
be enough to protect them. A third spraying, however, will
almost invariably pay several times its cost, and sometimes is
required for protection.

PEAR

Light or sandy soils are not so good for pears as heavy
loams or clay. Pears stand more water than peaches or apples,
too, but still should not have wet feet — a requirement that

105

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

holds good generally in fruit-growing. Pears do especially
well under the sod- mulch system of culture. Always avoid
too much tillage, nitrogen and stable manure — give more potash
and phosphoric acid.

Try to get the trees to begin ripening wood and fruit earlier
in season than apple trees. Grow good-sized trees in the first
four or five years, by careful planting and fertilizing, then
make them get down to bearing fruit as rapidly as possible,
without much regard to more growth. On bearing trees cut
back the tips of new wood in May or June, prune moderately
in the spring, and thin the fruit. You will have no trouble in
getting plenty of pears of high quality if you do this.

Kieffer is the kind for commercial orchards on a large scale,
because of the sure crop, the quantity yielded, and the ability
of the fruit to stand handling. Bartlett is not far behind,
however. It is a summer pear, of finer quality for eating fresh
than Kieffer, but it pays for this by being so mellow and tender
that it will not stand so much handling. It should be picked
a week before fully ripe.

Anjou, Lawrence and Clapp's Favorite need no intro-
duction to the majority of planters, and each is suited to a
special condition, under which it is unexcelled. Anjou and
Lawrence do well higher up than Clapp's Favorite. Seckel
is the highest quality pear known. It is small and very mellow.
Duchess, Flemish Beauty, Le Conte, Worden-Seckel, Garber,
Manning's Elizabeth, Winter Nelis, Bosc, Howell, Sheldon and
Vermont Beauty are good also, and succeed nearly everywhere.
There are many other varieties of pears which have merit, but
better stick to two or three best kinds for commercial orchard.

Cross-fertilizing of blossoms is very important with pears.
Where this is not sufficient, the fruit is liable to be small and

Eoor, rather than fewer in number. Time of blooming has to
e taken into account, also, as varieties differ widely. Anjou,
Flemish Beauty, Garber, Howell, LeConte and Kieffer, for
instance, ordinarily will shed their petals before the flower
buds of Vermont Beauty and Winter Nelis are open. Clapp's
Favorite, Manning's Elizabeth, Duchess, Lawrence, Bartlett,
Seckel and Clairgeau are between these two classes, and are
likely to be fertilized by both. Local information on this
matter is valuable. Spend a few days in observing pear trees
blooming in the locality in which you intend planting.

Pear foliage is tougher than that of most other fruits, still
many enemies have to be reckoned with. Leaf Blight and
Fruit Crack is fungus that causes reddish spots on the tops of
leaves, brown spots underneath, and pink spots and cracks in
the skin of fruit. For Fire Blight, Scab, Rot and Oyster Shell
Scale, see the data under Apple. Pear Midges are mosquito-
like flies which lay their eggs in the little fruits. From these
hatch maggots which later cause the fruit to crack and drop,
then the maggots spend the winter in the ground. Pear Psylla
are sucking insects. See under Apple for the other scales,
Caterpillars, and Codling Moth. Pear Slugs are greenish black,
slimy worms that chew on the upper sides of leaves.

106

SPECIAL THINGS NEEDED BY FRUITS

PEACH

Locate a peach orchard on a north slope if you can, but if
you can not, do not hesitate to plant in a different exposure.
As with apples, the higher elevations produce the finer fruit.
The kind of soil makes little difference so long as it is well
drained. Peaches will neither grow well nor bear when they
have wet feet. Protect from frost as much as possible in the
ways discussed in the chapter on frost. Peaches are the most
tender of fruit trees.

Peaches must be cultivated. That is, the soil must receive
treatment which will give the trees enough moisture, enough
available plant food and sufficient fine earth in which the roots
may feed. The time to begin cultivation is a year or more before
the trees are planted. All that has been said about planting
trees in general, and about planting apple trees in particular,
applies to peach-tree planting. In cultivating bearing orchards,
do not plow them in the spring until after the blossoms have
come.

When buying peach trees, remember that if you can get one-
year-old stock at fifty cents each and two- or three-year-old
trees for nothing, you will find the two- or three-year trees the
dearer in the end. Young trees should be headed low. Do not be
afraid you cannot get the horses under the limbs, as most of
them will stand up out of the way during cultivating time.
A small mule is better than a big horse in a peach orchard,
anyway.

In pruning peach trees, remember that they bear fruit only
on wood a year old — that is, only new wood this year will pro-
duce fruit next year. Half to two-thirds of each season's growth
is the right amount to prune off. Peaches will not produce
profit unless both pruning and thinning are regularly done
well. The markets always have plenty of little, off-color, and
insect-damaged peaches, but never enough good ones. Grading
and packing has an extra-large share in securing high prices.

Growing peaches is a specialist's job. Wonderful successes
are to be made by studying the needs and nature of this fruit,
while failure to do the right thing almost invariably results in
disaster. You must watch every point that has any influence
on trees or fruit or price. Under good care, a peach orchard will
live twenty-five years or longer; but the safest plan is to cal-
culate on getting back the cost of the orchard, and your
profit, from three crops, giving the orchard ten years from the
time it is planted in which to do this. You are likely to get
two or three times this, but you may not.

Of the varieties, Ray is in a class by itself. Few others are
so good, and none surpasses it when considered from the stand-
point of all-round excellence. Ray and the following twelve
kinds are recommended for a complete orchard, ripening from
earliest to latest, in all of the country east of the Alleghanies,
from Georgia to Maine: Carman, Mountain Rose, Champion,
Moore's Favorite, Belle of Georgia, Reeves' Favorite, Old

107

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

Mixon Free, Elberta, Stump the World, Crawford's Late, Fox's
Seedling and Chair's Choice.

In Michigan, Gold Drop, Kalamazoo^ Smock and Salway
are great successes. Hill's Chili, Champion and Crosby are
among the most hardy, and do well far north. Another and
second-best list for anywhere east of the Mississippi river and
north of Louisiana, including the Atlantic Coast states, in
order of ripening, would be these:

Mayflower, Greensboro and Hiley for first ripening; Mamie
Ross and Waddell for second; Slappy for third; Crawford's
Early and Cornet's, fourth; Captain Ede and Thurber, fifth;
Frances, Lemon Free, Niagara and Steven's Rare Ripe, sixth;
Geary's Hold-On, Smock and Wonderful, seventh; Ford's
Late White, Salway and Willett, eighth.

Peaches of the seventh and eighth classes as listed are
adapted particularly to mountainous sections. All of the very
late kinds seem to thrive better on high land than on low. In
the mountains of western Maryland and eastern West Virginia,
Mountain Rose, Billyou's Late October and other similar kinds
reach great perfection, while they do little good in Delaware
and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. In the same way, many of
the kinds which succeed best at the lower elevations practically
are failures on higher lands. Before you plant, talk to local
peach men, and learn what they have grown successfully and
unsuccessfully.

Planting of different varieties within reach of one another
is not so important with peaches as with apples or pears, yet
it should be done. All peaches in any one neighborhood seem
to bloom at about the same time, regardless of when they
ripen fruit. It will not, therefore, be so necessary to guard
against the failure of early and late-blooming kinds to pollinate
each other, though it is well to avoid setting solid blocks of
one kind. Anything less than one hundred and fifty feet is a
safe distance to have varieties apart when you want them to
cross-fertilize.

Peach trees and fruit are very susceptible to injury by
enemies; but, with the exception of against one or two troubles,
good spraying and other care will protect them almost com-
pletely.

Brown Rot, or Manilla Rot is a fungus. It comes first in a
small brown-rotted area, which spreads rapidly, especially
during wet weather. These rotten places later become covered
with powdery white spores. Little Peach seems to be a relative
of yellows; the fruit grows to about half the normal size, and
stays green, sour and bitter until late. Peach Leaf Curl is
due to a fungus, which causes the leaves to curl, thicken, turn
brown and drop.

Peach Rosette is another bacterial disease, something like
yellows. Shoots on affected trees grow in bunches and remain
short. Yellows is the disease for which we have no remedy but
the ax. It is not known that Yellows is caused by bacteria, but
this is thought to be the cause, and since the remedy is the same,
we include it in that class. Watch for the premature ripening

108

SPECIAL THINGS NEEDED BY FRUITS

of fruit, undersized yellow leaves that set at right angles to the
twigs, and tufty bunches of shoots anywhere on the tree.

Black Peach Aphis are shiny black sucking insects Svhich
attack both roots and tops. For San Jose Scale, see apples.
This always is the same, wherever it appears, and remedies
need not be changed. Curculios that attack pears are about the
same as those that attack apples. In all stone fruits — cherry,
•peach, plum, etc. — curculio larvae infest the flesh next the seeds,
causing the fruit to rot and drop. Fruit Bark Beetle, or Shot-
Hole Borer, attacks only weakened trees. The little black bugs
dig a channel an inch long under the bark. Lecanium Scale
is a large brown scale, hatching in midsummer and crawling
about for a short time; it is a chewing insect.

PLUM

There are four classes of plums, each having a predominating
characteristic for which it is valuable. The American or native
class, marked N, is very hardy. Its varieties bear many
individual fruits of the smaller sizes. The Japanese class, marked
J, bears choice fruit, and is adapted to the widest range of
territory. Trees of varieties in this class are hardier than peaches,
but not so hardy as apples. The European class, marked E,
bears the finest fruit of all. It succeeds over a more limited
area than the other types.

Plums must not be grown on soil that is too wet, but they
ought to have plenty of moisture, as they will not stand dry
weather well. Heavy lands are better than light, although the
Japanese kinds do well on soils lighter than the others will
succeed in. Two-year trees are the best to plant. The work
to be done is much the same as with the cherry, peach or apple,
and you can safely follow the directions given in the chapter on
planting, in the distance tables, and elsewhere.

Plums must be pruned. Some kinds need more than others.
The upright-growing varieties must be pruned by a system
entirely different from those used with the sprawling kinds.
Fruit is borne on wood two or more years old. Nearly all
kinds require tip pinching. Keep the head open so that light
can get in, and keep the bearing wood cut back enough to insure
that trees will not break with their loads of fruit after a reason-
able amount of thinning is done.

Red June (J), Satsuma (J), Wickson (J), Burbank (J),
Abundance (J), Bradshaw (E), October Purple (N), Ogon (N),
and Shropshire Damson (E), all are good sorts. They will
overlap in blooming time enough to cross-fertilize. Two or
more varieties should be planted withing reach of one another
for this purpose. An individual plum tree will set fruit, but
it will not be so fine as that produced when another kind assists.

Enemies to plums are overcome easily by proper treatment,
yet do serious damage when they are left alone. The bacteria
of Black Knot and of Crown Gall are the same with the plum
as with the cherry or apple. Brown Rot of plum is the same
fungous trouble that comes to peaches, while the Scales (suck-

109

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

ing insects), and the Curculios, Borers, Shot-Hole Borer, Slug
and Caterpillars (chewing insects) all attack plums. All of these
are the same as these enemies on cherry or peach trees.

QUINCE

In this country there are grown far too few quinces, even
for home use. Their flavor alone would make a market for two
or three dollars* worth with every family in the land, were the
quinces to be had. This amount should buy from fifty to
seventy-five quinces. It is easy to pack and transport the fruit
in perfect condition. Ordinary apple hampers, boxes, and bar-
rels, or peach and grape baskets, are the packages in which to
market them. Quinces are high-priced fruit, and good speci-
mens are worth taking the best care of. Use wrappers for the
individual fruits, and line the package with either plain paper
or the corrugated caps. They should be packed without too
much pressure, yet must not be loose. They should be picked
while still a little green, even for home use, and ripened in a
dark room.

Quince trees will grow in any soil, but succeed best in heavy
clay loam. They like plenty of moisture. The average hillside
or top is too dry for the best results, but a soggy place will not
do. The higher they are planted, however, the less trouble
there will be from fungi. Underdrain a good damp soil and it
will grow fine quinces — trees and fruit. Thorough tillage is
almost necessary, yet a very heavy straw or hay mulch may do
good work. The roots run close to the surface, so do not cul-
tivate deeply.

Pruning must be done regularly and by a system. Head
back the new growth and thin well each spring; then, if possible,
cut the tips back again in June or July. Quinces are real trees,
not shrubs, if treated right. The trees should have short trunks
and a round, shapely, well-branched head. Start with a straight
stem from eighteen inches to two feet high, and grow your
trees as they should be grown. Keep all suckers cut off from
the trunk. Remember that the fruit is borne on shoots of the
same year's growth, which grow from wood at least two years old,
and prune accordingly.

It is best to select at least two varieties when you plant,
on account of cross-fertilizing of blossoms. If you plant only
two trees, get different kinds. In an orchard you could use three
or four varieties to advantage. Orange, Champion, Meech,
Bourgeat and Mammoth all are good. For home use the first
three are to be preferred, but all are valuable commercially.

It is a mistake to suppose that quince trees are attacked by
so many enemies that they cannot be grown in the East. There
are many enemies, but not so many as attack the peach, nor
are they so difficult to control. Quince foliage is tougher and
will stand stronger sprays than peach. Black Rot is a fungus
which attacks quinces at the blossom, and, when they are
about half grown, fruits rot, shrivel, and hang on for months.
Blights, Rust, Scab, and other fungi, also attack Quince.

no

SPECIAL THINGS NEEDED BY FRUITS

Aphides and the Scale are the sucking insects attacking the
Quince, while Curculio, Codlin Moth, Bag Worm, Caterpillers
and Borers are the chewing insects. These are all the same as
on the apple.

CHERRY

In all parts of the East, cherries seem to thrive especially
well, but it remained for Colorado and the Pacific coast to show
what could be done in growing them. New York has some com-
mercial cherry orchards, but the East does not grow one-tenth
of the cherries it uses. Go into the better markets during the
cherry season, and you will find that California and other
Western states have supplied nearly all of this fruit.

Medium-sized, one-year, unbranched trees, especially if
they are of sweet varieties, are surer to grow than heavier ones.
Two-year trees, however, are good when properly dormant.
There is a world of difference in the growth and habits of sweet
and sour cherry trees. In general, it can be said that the sweet
do best on high land and in mountainous districts, while the
sour reach their greatest perfection down lower, and on lighter
soil. If there is a choice, select a light loam, gravel or similar
soil, although cherries will thrive in any place that is not
damp. They will not succeed to any extent in a seepage place
that is not drained. Trees that are propagated on Mazzard
stock are hardier and thriftier under adverse conditions than
those on Mahalab or native stock; hence, get trees on Mazzard
stock for exposed places and for northern districts.

Cherry trees are prone to grow too fast, splitting the bark
on trunk or limbs and doing other damage. For this reason,
and because the fruit ripens much earlier than other tree fruits,
cultivation should stop about the beginning of June. Never
use very heavy mulches under the trees, nor much, if any,
stable manure. Nitrate of soda, or any fertilizer containing
much nitrogen, is liable to do more harm than good. This, of
course, depends upon the soil. A poor soil, not deeply torn up
at the start, will demand more nitrogen and cultivation to
feed its cherry trees than a porous and mellow soil. But, in
general, cherries will thrive best when the ground is seeded to
grass and kept that way.

The less cherry trees are pruned, the better for them. It
is necessary to cut back the trees at the start, and to shape
the head while it is growing. Cut out limbs that cross each
other let in the sunlight, and remove dead limbs. That is
about all that will be needed. Fruit is borne only on wood that
is two or three years old. As for marketing, only a few words
are to be said, yet these are of great importance. Remove all
imperfect cherries, then pack the perfect ones in wooden boxes
such as are shown in the packing scene on page 117. They
should be arranged in rows, and must not be loose. On almost
any city market you can get from fifteen to twenty-five cents
a quart for good cherries packed in this way.

The choice of varieties depends upon the color and flavor you

in

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

want more than on anything else. Black Tartarian, Governor
Wood, Napoleon, Schmidt, Bing, Lambert, Windsor and Yellow
Spanish are good sweet kinds, which vary in color from black
to red, brown, and bright yellow. Baldwin, Dye House, Early
Richmond, English Morello, May Duke, Montmorency,
Reine Hortense and Wragg are good sour kinds of various
colors. English Morello, Montmorency and Early Richmond
are late bloomers, Baldwin is medium, and the rest are com-
paratively early, yet doubtless all will overlap enough to cross-
fertilize. Do not plant one kind alone; much better results can
be secured when two or more different varieties are within a
hundred feet of one another.

Cherry trees do not have many serious enemies, but should
be sprayed and looked after regularly. Black Knot can be
recognized by the thick swellings on twigs, which later develop
into black, warty growths, and break out all over the tree. It
is caused by bacteria. Brown Rot of cherry is the same as of
peach. Plum Leaf Blight, or Shot Hole Fungus, appears in
small purplish spots, which turn brown and drop out, leaving
a little round hole in the leaves. Cherry Aphides are shiny
little plant lice, brown and black, found thickly on the under
sides of leaves in May and June. They cause leaves to curl
and drop early. Woolly Aphis is the same on cherry as on apple,
as is also San Jose Scale. Curculio of cherry is about the same
as apple curculio, eating away the flesh of fruit next the seed.
Slug is the same as on peach. If Birds eat the cherries, hang
bits of bright tin on limbs, or put a stuffed or live owl or cat
in the tree. If mulberries or service berries are near, birds will
not bother cherries so much.

GRAPES

Grapes are grown in all parts of the world, north and south,
on high land and on low; they seem to thrive nearly as well in
one place as in another. The kind of soil makes little difference,
though it is probable that a heavy clay is better than a sandy
soil. Vines thrive among rocks, on steep hillsides, and on rich
bottom lands. Drainage is essential, as with all fruits, and in
low pockets of land frost is likely to catch blossoms. An ex-
posure to the south or the east is better than to the north or
west. We cannot give the exact reasons, but know that both
vines and fruit are attacked by more enemies when growing on
low land than on high. Although it is subject to the troubles
mentioned, from which hillside vineyards are free, a valley floor
will grow the finest grapes.

Vines are heavy feeders. Their roots extend far out and
make a net-work in the soil. The proper distance to plant will
be from six to eight feet apart, although sometimes this can be
changed to advantage. Strong varieties, on fertile soil, need
more room than small growers on poor soil. Before planting
is done, the ground should be worked even more thoroughly
and deeply than for a tree. Remember that you are planting
something which will last a generation, not a crop to be removed

112

SPECIAL THINGS NEEDED BY FRUITS

in a season or two. Plow the land, use dynamite to dig the
holes, and have a clearance inside the hole of at least twenty
inches. After-cultivation should be complete and continuous,
stopping each year only in time to ripen the wood and fruit
early in fall. Mulch systems do not succeed with grapes.

Use one-year vines if you can get them, though two-year
vines are nearly as good. Cut the little vines back to three or four
buds, cut the roots back to ten inches in length, and then plant
deeply, as early as possible in the spring. You can hardly get
grapes too deep within reason. These newly planted vines
should be mulched heavily with straw and manure, for two
feet about the vine. They require lots of nitrogen, which the
mulch will supply while it is saving moisture. Add whatever
commercial fertilizer the vines may lack, as indicated in the
chapter on feeding plants. For the first season, the canes may
be tied to stakes, or allowed to run on the ground. After
that they should be trained on trellises, to make easy the
spraying, cultivation and picking.

For home trellises, use the form you like or can get best.
In field vineyards, the form most widely used consists of posts
six feet high, on which are three wires — one at the top, and the
others below, about eighteen inches apart. A better way; in
our opinion, is to put a cross arm on the post, about five leet
from the ground, and string the three wires on this, one at
each end, and one in the middle. Train the leaders of the vine
up the post, in either case, then let the side branches grow out
on each wire, in both directions, half-way to the next vine.

The pruning of grape-vines has to be understood before it
can be done with any satisfaction or good results. At the same
time, a vine will not grow nor bear as it should if it is not pruned,
and if it is not pruned right. Grapes are borne on new wood
(of the same season's growth), and these shoots spring from
buds on wood of the last year's growth. This applies to all
American (so called) varieties, but not to the European or
Scuppernong kinds, which bear on shoots from two-year wood.
So, when we start with a new vine which has grown one summer,
all the shoots except one should be cut off in the next winter
(December to February), and this one should be cut back to
three or four buds. When the next growth starts, only two of
the strongest canes should be allowed to live, and these two
will form the main trunk of the vine.

The branches that arise from these two main stems during
the second season will go into the winter with a good crop of
buds. Your two-year-old vine should bear not more than
ten or a dozen bunches of grapes; so, in the second winter,
cut off all the branches except three or four, and cut these back
to two or three buds each, because each bud will average two
bunches. In this way, thinning is done by pruning. ^This
principle holds good with any vine, no matter how old it is.
One set of roots can mature properly not more than from forty
to eighty bunches, depending on the kind and age. Each winter,
cut every vine back so that it carries only half as many buds
as you want bunches of grapes next season.

HOW TjO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

A hard, well-ripened cane the size of your little finger is
better than one thicker or slimmer, and very thick ones are
worth the least of all. As the fruit-bearing shoots spring each
year from wood of the previous season's growth, and from
none older, your vines will be a few feet longer each year.
About every three years, it will be necessary to let two or three
new canes start from the original trunk, then cut away entirely
the wood that has been bearing. Treated in this way, a vine
will bear heavy crops every year for you, your children, and
your grandchildren.

Cross fertilizing is absolutely essential with grapes. Go
through the woods and see the big, healthy wild grape-vines
that are full of bloom, yet do not set a single bunch. At bloom-
ing-time cut a branch from a vine bearing flowers of the oppo-
site sex, take it near the barren vine and thrash it about a little.
A great number of the blossoms on the vine heretofore fruitless
will be fertilized, and will be loaded with grapes. This little
experiment will convince you of the need of cross-fertilizing for
any fruit. Not all varieties of grapes blossom at the same time,
but they overlap enough to do the work. Any two kinds seem
to be able to fertilize each other.

Campbell's Early, Moore's Early, Concord and Worden
are good black varieties. Delaware, Wyoming, Catawba, Brighton
and Agawam are good red ones, and Pocklington, Niagara,
Green Mountain (Winchell) and Diamond are good white sorts.

Grapes have many enemies, almost all of which yield readily
to spraying and other care. One method of preventing damage
is to bag the bunches. This works every time, and does not
cost much. When the grapes are about half-grown, paper bags
are slipped over the bunches, and either tied around the stem,
or split at the top and the two sides wrapped around the cane.
These bags will stay on until the grapes are ripe, and prevent
damage from all insects and fungi. Other remedies for all
grape troubles are given in the spraying directions, and here
follow descriptions of the enemies.

Black Rot, a fungus, first appears on the leaves as small,
reddish brown spots, and about two weeks later as light spots
on the fruit, beneath which the fruit has decayed, These
spots increase in size until they involve the whole berry, which
finally turns black, shriveled and crumpled. Downy Mildew,
another fungus, appears about the time the vines blossom.
There comes a dense, white velvety growth on the under side
of leaves and on shoots and fruit. This keeps up all summer.
Grape Anthracnose, or Bird's Eye Rot, affects all green parts
of the vine, but particularly the shoots and fruit. Little round
brown dots with a border appear on the shoots, and gray,
red and brown rings, one inside the other, on the berries.

The Flea Beetle is a steel-blue bug about an eighth of an
inch long, the young of which eat away the upper surface of
the leaves. Grape Berry Moths look about the same, but from
their eggs, which are laid in June or July, hatch white worms
that eat into the grapes. Grape Phylloxera (insects) are indicated
by fleshy growths on the under side of leaves, and by swelled

114

SPECIAL THINGS NEEDED BY FRUITS

and knotty roots. Throw infected vines away and get clean
stock. The young caterpillars of the Grape Plume Moth hatch
early in the spring and bind together several leaves at the ends
of shoots, feeding on them. Grape Root Worms feed on the
roots of grapes, staying in the ground all winter, and then, in
the spring, come up and feed on the leaves for a few days. The
Grape-vine Leaf-hopper is a sucking insect, infesting the under
sides of leaves. Rose Bugs are long-legged, grayish brown
beetles, about half an inch long. They are chewing insects.

STRAWBERRY AND OTHER SMALL FRUITS

All that has been said about the care of the soil for tree fruits
applies to those which grow on vine and bush and plant. Even
pruning of the small fruits should be done with the same prin-
ciples in mind as when pruning a fruit tree. Less thinning is
required, however, unless it be with strawberries. Strawberries
are the best possible inter-crop for an orchard. With them you
can get a good income from the ground, and give the trees the
needed cultivation. Do not plant any berries, or other crop,
nearer than four feet to the trees.

In handling any intercrop between orchard trees, remember
that you must not stir the soil after the first of August at the
latest. It will be better left alone after the first of July. Straw-
berry plants do not ripen up and become dormant till the ground
freezes hard, but fruit trees must be entirely dormant before
any hard frosts come, or great damage will result. The same
remarks apply to watering the intercrop. Quite often it is
possible, even in the East, to irrigate part or all of a strawberry
field. For the plants this would be a desirable thing in the fall,
but it would be very bad for the trees.

The train loads of berries that go rolling to the big cities
every May and June prove that strawberry growing is an
important industry in itself, without regard to the plants
in young orchards. On the Delaware and Maryland Peninsula,
in parts of the Mississippi Valley, in California, and in the
Northwest, wide sections have specialized on berry-growing.
In these places, nearly every station has an ice-plant near, has
a dozen or more berry-buyers' offices, and, in season, long lines
of refrigerator cars are loaded every day. Go to these stations
in the morning and see the strings of rigs coming in from the
surrounding country, loaded with crates of berries picked since
daylight.

Strawberries are one of the quickest money crops. They
mature a crop fourteen months from planting, and this can be
sold for cash. It costs so little to plant a field that no farmer
is too poor to do it. They will grow anywhere, in nearly any
soil, except clean white sand or soggy clay. The fields in north-
ern Canada and in Florida and Texas seem to thrive about as
well as those in Maryland or Missouri. There are varieties
for every purpose, bearing firm berries and soft berries, ripening
early and late. They can be depended upon for profit, and for
the specialist they offer most attractive opportunities.

"S

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

Young plants, that is, plants that never have borne fruit,
are the only ones to use. After a plant has borne two crops,
its old roots get dark, wiry, and finally nearly all die. A young
growth starts above or below the old roots, but these roots never
amount to much. Young plants have white, fibrous roots, and
firm, well-developed crowns and stalks, which contain much
stored-up nourishment for use when ground is frozen solid, or
is too dry to allow the roots to gather more. Another important
thing about plants is that they inherit the bearing characteristics
of their parents. A plant produced by another that has been
well cared for, fed properly, and which has borne a heavy crop
of large, firm berries, will likely do the same if given good care.
On the other hand, a plant produced by a parent that has been
neglected, starved or dried out, and which bore few berries or
small berries, will have a tendency to make few fruits, of inferior
size.

It seldom pays to get plants from an old fruiting field. Get
them from a breeding field or bed. The producer should make
his parent plants bear, to see what they will do (no two plants
bear alike, and the poor bearers must be destroyed). But the
primary purpose of a breeding bed is the production of plants,
and for the best results it must be cultivated and fertilized
accordingly. In starting a field or bed, it costs little more to
get plants that are right in every way, and it often makes a
hundred per cent of difference in the returns.

Almost any soil is a good soil for strawberries. It need not
be deep. The depth to plow and tear it up will vary with the
kind of soil and with its physical condition. Strawberries are
naturally shallow-rooted plants, and must be encouraged continu-
ally to send their roots deeper, in order to be sure of a supply of
moisture and to feed in soil of an even temperature. A light
soil should be torn up no more than four inches, while a heavier
one must be mixed well as deep as eight inches. We would
suggest that you go back and read over the soil-handling direc-
tions given in earlier chapters. The essential features are to
have the soil fine and loose, in good physical shape, but with
no large air-spaces. The surface should be covered with a loose
dust mulch to prevent evaporation. Plowing, disking, harrowing
and rolling are all needed, the amount of each depending on
the situation. Berries must have plenty of moisture and plenty
of food, and half the battle to get these is in putting the soil in
shape.

The richer the land the better for berries. Barnyard manure
is one of the best possible fertilizers. Five hundred to eight
hundred bushels an acre is not too much, and it should go
on with spreader. They need lots of nitrogen. If dry, irrigate
them during April, May and June, if possible. It Witt pay (see
pages 9 and 10).

Spring is the time to plant in all sections north of North
Carolina. South of that state fall planting is advisable some-
times, yet if planting is done during late winter or very early
spring, whenever the ground can be worked, better results
usually will be had. In the North, planting should be done the

116

Garden trellis for grapes, also grapes under glass.

Grapes bear only on new wood. Each bud will average two bunches on new shoot.

Bartlett pear orchard. Sod mulch is ordinarily better than cultivation for pears.

The way to pack cherries to realize big prices — but it requires proper packages.

117

Commercial orchards of cherries pay more than apples if proper care is taken. These
trees have been cultivated, sprayed, shaped and watched right.

Strawberries are the standard inter-crop in young orchards. They always pay.

Scenes near stations where co-operative marketing is carried on. Growers are bring-
ing in fruits and produce of all kinds, and selling it right there for highest market
prices. Future fruit-growing success depends on co-operative selling.

Fruit stand in New York. Note packages. Prepare your fruit for this and you will have no
trouble in getting high prices. Careful spraying, grading and packing most essential.

SPECIAL THINGS NEEDED BY FRUITS

first day after February when the ground can be worked, after
it has been prepared properly, as outlined. Mark the rows with
a cord or a scratch made with pegs in a plank. Transplanting
machines will do the work about twice as fast as it can be done
by hand, but not so well. The very best way to set strawberry
plants is to get down on your knees and use a trowel or dibble.
The one great trouble with machines is that they set plants too
deep or too shallow. The crown should come right at the sur-
face, not a half inch below or above. Roots are better spread
out as tree roots must be, but many growers simply drop them
into a hole and pack the dirt firmly. A little experience will
teach any one how to plant properly.

There are three systems of planting in common use: the
matted row, the hill and the hedge system. The former is the
only practicable system for commercial fields. With it the
plants are put in rows three or four feet apart and eighteen to
twenty-four inches apart in the row. The first summer runners
are left to form as many new plants as they will in a space a foot
or so wide (beyond this they are cut off with a cutter on cul-
tivator). With the hill system, one plant is made do the work
in each place, and these hills may be from twelve to twenty
inches each way. All runners are cut off. The hedge system is
really a modification of the hill system, and consists of rows of
hills, each plant having six inches or so of clean space about it.
The hill and hedge systems make lots of work, though they
produce fine berries, and are to be advised for all or part of
home gardens.

Mulching strawberries is done to keep soil moist and cool
in summer, to protect the berries from mud and dirt when
ripe, and to protect plants in winter. The winter protection need
not be put on till after the ground freezes, as the plan is to pre-
vent alternate freezing and thawing, and not to keep the ground
from freezing. Such a mulch should be loosened up or raked to
side of row in spring. Winter protection is not needed south
of Maryland. Mulches, where winter protection is not desired,
should be put on in spring, when the first thawing begins.

Fields or beds will bear two good crops and no more. They
may be renewed for one more year, and sometimes for two, by
plowing all the matted row except four to six inches, applying
manure heavily, working back to the remaining plants with a
cultivator the thrown-out soil, then cutting out all the old
plants left, and enough of the new ones to leave those that
remain six or eight inches apart. This work should be done as
soon as possible after the crop is removed. If the old plants
are diseased, burn over the field before plowing. This will not
kill the plants. .

Cross pollination of strawberries is very important. The
blossoms are of two kinds. One kind is pistillate only (such as
Haverland and Bubach). These are called imperfect, and they
cannot set fruit without help from another variety. The other
kind are both pistillate and staminate, and are called perfect.
They can set fruit if no other kind is near, and they can fertilize
other pistillate kinds, but their fruit is finer if they are cross*

119

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

pollinated by another staminate kind. Reliable growers usually
give the sex of varieties in their catalogs. One row of staminate
blossoms will fertilize two rows of pistillate kinds. It is well to
alternate varieties to some extent, no matter what kinds are
planted, because plenty of pollination always results in the
finest fruit. The sex of a blossom can be told from its appear-
ance. The pistillate kinds will have at the bottom of the flower
only a cone-shaped mass or body (the undeveloped fruit.)
The staminate kinds have this and also many upright "stamens"
on the ends of which the pollen is borne.

We will recommend just five kinds for the commercial
grower — Millionaire, Klondyke, Gandy, Haverland and Parsons.
For home gardens the list can be extended to a dozen or more,
and they should be selected with consideration for color, quality
of flesh and season of ripening wanted. Get those kinds that
bear firm berries or soft ones, that are deep or pale red, and
that ripen all the way from earliest to latest. There is much
talk now of an everbearing Strawberry. Doubtless before long
this will be developed to a satisfactory state, and, when it is,
we can have Strawberries from May until October.

Berries should be picked with the stems on, as they keep
better this way. Of course no one would think of trying to ship
berries without stems. Picking should be done while the berries
are cool. The best time is early in the morning, before the sun
has warmed them up. Do not let them remain in the field, nor
let the sun shine on them. If you do not take them to the rail-
road station and the refrigerator car immediately, get them
into some kind of cool or cold storage without delay. The
market package is standard all over the country — the quart
boxes carried in a crate. Put the berries into these boxes as
you pick. A basket carrier is needed for fast work.

The berries should not be picked while there is any green
about them. It does not pay. Grading should be done carefully.
Pickers will have to do this, and they must be taught its im-
portance. Good prices depend on uniform, proper grading and
packing just as much with Strawberries as with apples. In
seasons of low prices, and to take care of the culls, in any season,
large amounts of berries may be processed — made into the
fruit syrups used in confectionery and in flavors. At least
five cents a quart can be realized in this way. The equipment
is not difficult to install or handle, and any Strawberry neigh-
borhood can afford one. Write us and we shall be glad to give
you the details.

Enemies of small fruits fall into the same classes as those
of tree fruits, and must be combated with equal care. Among
those of Strawberry plants, Leaf Blight needs no description.
It is a fungus. Root Aphis are the little blue insects that live
on the roots and suck out the sap. Leaf Roller is a small brown
caterpillar. Slug is the same as on cherry or peach. Strawberry-
crown Borers are the young of a drab beetle about half an inch
long, and Strawberry Weevils are little black beetles that lay
their eggs in the fruit buds of the berries, then go below on the
stem and cut it, causing it to wilt and drop over.

120

SPECIAL THINGS NEEDED BY FRUITS

Currant Anthracnose appears as small brown or black spots
on the under side of leaves. Leaf Spots of other kinds also cause
the leaves to yellow and drop early. All are caused by fungi.
Currant Aphis, Currant Leaf Hopper, Four-lined Leaf Bug,
San Jose Scale and Scruffy Scale attack currant bushes. All are
sucking insects. Currant Borers and Currant Worms are chewing
insects, needing no description. Most of these enemies also
attack other small fruits. Gooseberry Mildew attacks both leaves
and berries. Its mark is the cobwebby covering on leaves and
buds, and it is a fungus. Gooseberry Fruit Worms make their
way into the berries and eat out all the pulp. They are chewing
insects. Leaf Spot or Blight, Mildew, Tomato Rot, all are fungous
enemies of the tomato. Bacteriosis of tomato is caused by bac-
teria. The marks are sudden wilting of foliage, and a change
from green to yellow and brown. Many insects infest tomatoes;
the treatment for all is the same. What is known as Sun Scald
on raspberries, etc., really is Anthracnose, a fungus. The marks
are purple spots on young shoots, which, growing and extending,
finally girdle and kill the canes. Crown Gall of the small fruits
is the same as that of peach. It comes from bacteria. The
same is true of Orange Rust. Rose Scale can be seen on the canes,
near the ground. Blackberry Gallmaker, Raspberry Cane Borer,
Slug, and Tree Cricket, all are chewing insects on small fruits.

SUMMARY

The location for an orchard should be chosen with reference
to elevation, air-drainage, water-drainage, soil and nearness
to transportation facilities.

Varieties differ in season of ripening, color, flavor and texture
of fruit, but to an even greater extent in adaptation to various
elevations, latitudes, etc., in habit of growth, and in disease-
and insect-resisting ability. Carefully choose the kinds suited
to your locality.

Cross-pollination is most important. To secure it, plant
different varieties that bloom at the same time, within 150
feet of each other.

For any one locality there are only a half dozen or so kinds
that head the list. Commercial orchards should contain no
more than three or four kinds, and small orchards only two
kinds. With carload lots of one kind you can command the
attention of buyers and get much higher prices.

121

Marketing

THE big profits in growing fruit depend upon the manner in
which fruit is harvested and marketed, more than upon any
other element. Picking, grading, packing and selling really
constitute one operation, since all help toward one object — the
placing of the fruit in the hands of the users in the best possible
condition. While the average grower has much to learn about
varieties, feeding, pruning, spraying, and other care, he must
count his work a failure unless he knows also how to get the
money for his fine fruit.

Fruit should be picked at exactly the right time. A good
way to tell when to pick most fruits is to lift them up gently —
if they are ready to pick, they will come from the spur easily
when you give them a little twist. Unless there is a tree trouble,
or unless a variety is out of its latitude, this is a reliable guide
for apples. Pears sometimes should be picked when they are
a little greener. The softer varieties, like Bartlett and Seckel,
especially, should come off a week before they take on their
full colors. Peaches, plums, cherries and grapes are best when
picked at the stage when they have colored-up well, but still
are firm and hard. This is for shipping or keeping. For im-
mediate home use, let all fruits except quinces mellow on the
trees. In no other way can they get such flavor as is given by
the sun and the wind.

Be sure to leave the stems on all fruit except peaches and
some plums. Apples from which twenty per cent of the stems
are missing will be objected to on the best markets. Cherries
and plums will not keep without stems. (But cherry stems
ought to be clipped with shears after picking, leaving from a
quarter to a half-inch only on the fruit.) With any kind of
fruit, these stems come from a fruit spur, and from only one
of several fruit buds. If you leave that spur and the buds
undamaged, they will set fruit again next year. To break the
spur or any of the buds means that you are deliberately killing
a half-dozen fruits of the next two or three years' crop. See
a detailed explanation of this in the chapters on thinning and
pruning.

Use baskets, rather than bags, to pick in, either of wood or
canvas. The wood ones generally are best. Get those with
the hinged handles that will enable you to empty the fruit
out without dropping it an inch. Baskets that are open at the
bottom are to be had on the market, and are very good. You
can have a blacksmith make hooks with which the basket
can be hung at the side of the ladder or to a limb, where
both hands can reach it, or a strong hook made in the shape
of an "A" will hold two baskets. If trees are high, have a
rope and pulley with which a helper on the ground can lower
the baskets while the picker works. Fruit in bags will be bruised
when pickers climb over ladders and limbs. Employ men who
will pick with both hands — the one-handed picker is closely
related to the one-handed milker. Better stop picking during

122

PICKING, PACKING AND MARKETING

hot, murky days. No picking equals that done with your hands,
yet some of the patent pickers might be used for the fine fruits
out on the ends of tall limbs.

Ladders should be light and strong. Extension ladders will
be good for high trees, but ordinarily the best are made from
dead white pine poles cut in the woods, with cleats nailed on.
These are light, very strong, and cheap.

For peach trees, a three-foot picking bench is often what is
needed. The next higher is a two-way step-ladder, with a plat-
form near the top on which to set the basket. This is good for
young apple trees too. A longer ladder arrangement, that can
be moved about easily, is made by using a couple of strong
wheels, of any kind and size, and axle, and two handles like
wheelbarrow handles. The lower ends of two six-foot uprights
are bolted to these handles near the axle, while the upper ends
are bolted to the ladder eight feet or so from the bottom. Lad-
ders should be laid into trees gently, and fruit should be handled
like eggs.

As soon as possible after the fruit leaves the twigs, get it
into cool storage. Some of the best growers do not allow picked
fruit to remain in the orchard or grading -houses more than
thirty minutes. Fruit cooled quickly will keep longer and in
much better condition than that left to lie around. Under no
conditions pile fruit on the ground or grass in the orchard.
Crates, bushel-boxes, barrels, etc., are all good for use in carry-
ing apples and pears from orchard to grading or storage house.
Peaches, plums and grapes should go in baskets or hampers,
which are firm and solid. Shaky and yielding baskets will
bruise fruit.

Low-wheeled, broad-tired wagons, with a platform higher
than the wheels, and no bed — just a four-inch rim — are best
to haul fruit on. At the sorting-house or storage-place have
platforms just about as high as the wagon platform, to make
unloading quicker and easier. One grower uses large coffee-
boxes to haul apples in, and loads these side by side on a wagon
made by fastening two long, springy poles to the front and
rear bolsters of a long-coupled wagon. Spring wagons are made
that do good work, and one or two automobile makers offer
big trucks that are efficient.

What is first-class fruit? Take apples, for instance. The
grading of other fruits is governed to a certain extent by the
rules that apply with apples. That is, all fruit is graded for
color, size and perfection, and any one who can correctly grade
apples can grade the other fruits by applying common sense.
"Standard" big apples must be more than two and one-half
inches in diameter. A standard small apple must be more than
two and a quarter inches. These are the firsts, in regard to
size. The next standard smaller size is a quarter of an inch less
in each case. Size makes little difference in the selling price,
so long as the apples are up to the mark in other things. All the
apples in one package must be uniform in size and in color.
The rules of all selling associations of the West, and the regu-
lations under which fruit is judged at all the big shows are that

123

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

the diameters of the different apples in the same package shall
not vary more than a quarter of an inch. Most graders make
only two classes for color — the brilliant apples and the pale
ones.

After size and color come shape and condition. Lop-sided
or uneven apples are not wanted. Of course, this is a matter
of variety to a certain extent, but the idea is to have them as
even and smooth as possible. Worm-holes and all other insect
damage, fungi damage and bruises must not be there. Judges
will insist on fruit being ninety-five per cent perfect in this.
The fruit must be flawless to get high prices. The other fruits
are governed by the same general rules, each in its own way.
Grade your fruit so that in one package you have only those
specimens of about the same color, and of the same size to within
a quarter of an inch. Never mix varieties.

A packing-house, or grading-house, should have plenty of
wide doors, and usually is filled with tables. Grading tables
are sloping, with padded rims and tops. The fruit is brought
from the orchard and slowly poured down these tables past
the sorters, who separate and direct it into different chutes
which lead to canvas or other receptacles that will not bruise.
Often the whole table top, chutes, baskets and guides, etc., can
be made of canvas better than of any other material. Grading
is done with the eye, mostly, but beginners may find that a
thin board with holes the exact diameter they want the apples
will help to train the eye. Try the apples into the holes when
you hesitate.

There are many grading machines, nearly all made by cut-
ting holes of the right size in an inclined board, and then rolling
the fruit over these holes. The best grader we have seen is
in use in the Hamilton orchard, in Colorado. It is the first
real grading-machine, and is run by power. The owner of this
machine cuts the holes in belts. If he wants six sizes, or three
sizes, he uses that many belts, and cuts holes of one size every
few inches in each belt. Then a series of drums or pulleys to
which power can be applied are mounted on a frame, so that
when the belts are on they will be end to end. If the belts are
four feet long, three would make a machine twelve feet long.

Hamilton used two sets of these belts, side by side, for apples —
one side for the highly colored ones, and the other for the paler
ones. A trough is built, with the belts for bottoms. Felt or
broom hangers turn the fruit and brush it into holes. Suppose
the holes in the first belt are two and a quarter inches in diam-
eter. When all the apples are poured on it, and the belts re-
volved, those apples of less than that size will drop through the
first belt to a canvas chute below, and the larger ones will be
carried on to the next belt, which has holes two and five-eighths
of an inch in diameter. The last belt in the series can have
very large holes, or the biggest apples can go over the end. Such
a grading-machine can be made at home for less than a hundred
dollars.

Most fruit growers can afford to build a house underground,
or partly underground, for their fruit; and this is the best

124

PICKING, PACKING AND MARKETING

possible storage, excelling the buildings cooled by ice and
ammonia, because all the original fine flavor is retained, and
the apples do not lose so much from shrinkage. If you have
to store in an ordinary cellar, keep the temperature as uniform
as possible, at 40 degrees or under, provide plenty of ventilation,
remove warm and impure air and let in fresh, cool air. Sewer
pipe and chimney material, properly placed, will do this. Let
your cold air in at the floor, and drain the other out at the ceil-
ing. It is not good for the fruit or the people to store fruit in a
cellar under a dwelling.

A storehouse can be made cheaply by digging partly, or
entirely, into a hill, and then putting over a wooden frame a
layer of concrete in the form of an arch, six inches through or
thicker. The floor should be of concrete. Such a house should
be not wider than twenty feet, but may be as long as you require.
It does not take a very big space in which to store several
thousand bushels. We know of such a house with a capacity
of seventy-five hundred bushels, which cost only eleven hun-
dred dollars.

The fall it was built, the owner had four thousand bushels
of apples. At picking-time, he was offered eighty-five cents a
bushel, and the buyer said this was fifteen cents above the
market. None of them knew of the storage-house. Finally the
grower took them to it. When they saw this, they immediately
offered him a dollar and a quarter for all the apples he had.
The difference between these two offers would have paid more
than the cost of the house, without using it. So, by storing
his apples, this grower realized nearly a dollar and a half for
them that year. Such facilities make you independent of
current markets.

The temperature in an underground house can be kept
below fifty degrees after the first of October, by taking in cool
night air and shutting out warm day air. During November
it can be lowered to any degree wanted, and with proper care
of the doors and ventilators, the temperature will not vary
a half degree all winter. The right temperature at which to
best keep various fruits is as follows: Apples 39°, Cherries
40°, Grapes 36°, Nuts 35°, Oranges 36°, Pears, Peaches, Plums,
Prunes and Quinces 35°, Vegetables 35°, Watermelons 35°.

Some growers grade and pack their apples as soon as they
are picked, while others store them in bulk, and grade them
when they are ready to sell. The plan to use depends on the
market. In any case, have plenty of barrels, hampers, baskets
or boxes. Use boxes whenever possible. It is safe advice to
suggest that you pack in boxes all the apples that are fit for
storing, and barrels for only those that go into consumers' hands
at once, or for the poorer grades that go to drying and processing
houses. Barrels have been the common package in the East,
but other packages are fast displacing them. Hampers and
bushel baskets are good where the shipping distance is only
a couple of hundred miles, particularly for fall apples, and
those which are too good for vinegar or apple-butter. The standard
barrel for this country is seventeen and one-eighth inches in

125

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

diameter at the head, inside; the staves are twenty-eight and
a half inches long, the chimes three-fourths of an inch deep,
and the barrel at the bulge is sixty-four inches in circumference,
or about twenty-one inches in diameter. The capacity should
be as near as possible ninety-six quarts — three bushels.

Packing in barrels needs little explanation. Make at least
two grades of apples, and it is better to make four or five. Face
three layers with the stems down in the bottom, then put fruit
in to fill up, either by pouring and shaking, or by placing each
apple by hand. The latter is best. Face three rows on top
with the stems up. Put the same size and color of fruit all the
way through the barrel. The top layer should come an inch or
two above the top of the staves. Then put the lid on top of
these and force it into place with a press, or pole. Screw and
lever presses are both good; the latter is the handiest, especially
the kind that locks the pressure on while you nail in the head.
The hard, unyielding sorts of apples should be squeezed less
than softer ones. Thus Spies will stand only an inch or so,
while Greenings should go down at least two inches. Do not
leave them loose in the barrel, yet do not squeeze them too
much. Some packers use a lace-paper circle under head of the
finer grades. It always is a good plan to line the barrels with
paper, and to use a pad on the top and bottom, inside. This
pad may be of corrugated board, but the best ones are made of
excelsior. The packing-pad should be thick enough to prevent
bruising, yet not so thick as to make a slack barrel. When
apples are stored in barrels, then sold without repacking, they
should have a double-thick "winter" pad put under the head
when taken out of storage.

With hampers and baskets, grading should be the same, but
there is little packing to do. Simply pour them in gently. A
few growers face the top layer and use a corrugated board under
the lid. The lids cannot squeeze the apples much. Hampers go
to consumer with the minimum of rough handling, yet this is
a style of packing that is not good for shipping more than two
or three hundred miles, nor for other than early apples.

"Take-home" baskets are another thing. They are used with
all fruit. The idea is to get a package that is attractive, strong
enough to be useful afterward, and of a size that will hold
enough fruit to be sold at retail for a quarter- or a half-dollar —
enough for one family a day or a meal. Such baskets can be
packed in the orchard and shipped to the cities in big crates,
which keep the baskets from shifting and the fruit from shift-
ing in the baskets. Only the finest fruit, carefully graded, should
be used.

The standard boxes are ten by eleven by twenty inches, and
the "specials" are ten and a half by eleven and a half by eigh-
teen. The first is used three-fourths of the time. The two
sizes are needed to accommodate different sizes of apples or
pears, but no others should be used. These sizes contain a
little less than a bushel, when level full, but the necessary
bulge makes their capacity more than a bushel. In them,
however, fruit is not sold by the bushel, but by the number of apples

126

PICKING, PACKING AND MARKETING

or pears they carry, of a certain size, or tier. The box sizes named
here have been proved by long experience to be best. Do not let
any one tell you to use some odd size. Following is an expla-
nation of how many apples are in a box, by all the different
packs and with all sizes of fruit. In a standard box fruit 2%
inches in diameter makes a 4^-tier pack (a tier is a column
up and down, the length of the box); 2^ makes a 4j^-tier,
2^ a 4- tier, 3>i a sJi-tier, 3^ a 3-tier, 3^ and larger a 2^-

tier.

We recommend that growers use only the diagonal pack.
It is a little harder to learn, but is greatly superior, both in
efficiency and in looks, to the straight-packed boxes, which
are little better than barrels for carrying. Fruit in straight
packs will always bruise, and always will have to go into the
"slightly damaged" class. Of course, no fruit should ever be
put into boxes without definite system. Even facing a row on
top and bottom has been tried and abandoned. Therefore, the
figures given here refer to the diagonal system only. Any apple
packed in a barrel, unless with the greatest of care in handling
all the way, is a damaged specimen when it reaches the consumer.
A good box will deliver it almost perfect, therefore use boxes
whenever you can.

NUMBERS OF APPLES IN BOXES, AND ARRANGEMENT.

Number Size Number Number Number

apples expressed rows apples layers Box

in box in tiers wide Pack in row deep used

52 2^ 2^ 2-2 4-4 4 Standard

>8 2^ 3 2-2 4-5 4 Special

3^ 2-2 4-4 4 Standard

7» 3% 3^2 2-2 4-5 4 Standard

80 3^3 3^ 2-2 s-s 4 Standard

88 3^ 3^ 2-2 5-6 4 Standard

96 3^2 3% 2-2 6-6 4 Special

104 $14 zlA 2-2 6-7 4 Special

112 3^ 3M 2-2 7-7 4 Special

120 3^ zY* 2-2 7-8 4 Standard

150 4H 4^ 5-2 6-8 5 Standard

163 43^ 4^ 3-2 6-7 5 Standard

I7S 4^ 4^ 3-2 7-7 S Standard

165 4H 4^ 3-2 7-8 5 Special

200 4}^ 4^-5 3-2 8-8 5 Special

Just how to arrange the apples for each pack is difficult to
describe, although it is learned easily by experience. The be-
ginner soon will discover that certain-sized apples fit best one
way, and others another way. This is the basis of all the systems.
For instance, with the four-and-a-half tier, 163 apple pack, the
bottom layer is started in the lower right-hand corner with
two apples, placed side by side. Not one back in the corner
and the other out, but both across^ the corner. In spaces be-
tween these apples, and at their sides, three more apples are
placed, ^ with a fourth at the left-hand end of this row. The
third diagonal row has five apples, in the spaces between and
alongside the four in the second row. This process is continued
till a full layer is made. As you pack, force the apples back
against the ones put in first. The second layer of this pack,

127

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

following out the system of putting the next apples in the
hollows between the last ones, has an apple right in the corner,
two more in front of it, with a third to the left of the two,
making the second row, then five in the third row, and so on.
As you fill the box, put the biggest apples at the center of the
box. When the last layer is reached, there should be a bulge
at the center of at least an inch. When the thin lid is nailed on,
the boards will bend, holding the apples between a spring,
in a way, and taking advantage of the first great point in the
superiority of the box over the barrel — the flexible package.
All kinds of apples can be packed in boxes. The usual plan is
to pack only the finer ones. But, if an apple is worth growing,
it is worth taking care of, and we are not advocating half-way
measures anywhere in this book.

Other packs are put up on exactly the same lines. You will
soon learn how by doing it. Remember that the object is not
the system itself, but to get the apples to the consumer in the
best shape possible. Some apples will be loose in any of these
classes, and with these it is advisable to use cardboard between
the layers. Some growers also use corrugated paper on the top
and bottom of box. In all cases, every box should be lined
with two pieces of paper. This comes cut to the sizes wanted.
In using, it is necessary to put a fold or pleat in each sheet
where it goes into the lower corners, to prevent tearing when
the bulge is made. Take a sheet in both hands, fold it toward
you with fingers, then back again, then draw it across your knee.
Apples should be wrapped in paper. This undoubtedly pre-
vents wilting and keeps the air from them. A tissue, made for
the purpose, is better than anything else. It comes ready cut
in the right sizes, which are either ten by ten inches or eight
by ten, and ready printed, too, if wanted. The cost of these
wrappers is about 35 cents a thousand.

Get a neat and attractive lithographed label, showing an
orchard scene and your name, etc., to go on the end of each box or
barrel. It is best also to have stencils or large rubber stamps with
which to mark each package with exactly what is in it, as "3-tier,
88, Stayman Winesap," and your name and address. If you grow
good fruit and use care in getting it to customers, you are
entitled to the benefit of the good-will you establish. Never
make the mistake of trying to get the old packages back for
use the next season. It pays to use new boxes or barrels each
time. An old barrel or box will condemn the fruit it carries,
right away. This applies to fruit packages of any kind. Where
to buy barrels, boxes, hampers, baskets, depends upon your
location. Watch the advertising columns of the farm and fruit
papers and books. Send for prices and compare. The adver-
tisements will be your buying guide for a good many things.

Pears are best packed in the bushel boxes or in hampers.
They should be wrapped in tissue paper, first carefully graded,
and very carefully arranged. The arrangement in the packages
will be same as for apples. Some very fine pears can be shipped
in peach carriers and sell to advantage. Plain fruit is handled
best without tissue wrapping in hampers.

128

PICKING, PACKING AND MARKETING

Many of the directions given for packing apples will give
you hints on packing peaches, plums and other fruit. Various
boxes and baskets are used for peaches. The best we have seen
is the flat box of the West. This is eleven and a half by eighteen
inches, and four, four and a half, or five inches deep. Just
two layers of peaches are put into it, arranged just as you
would place apples of the same size in a box. Peaches should
be wrapped if they are fine. The regular one-sixth and one-
half-bushel baskets and the high, flaring hampers also are good
for peaches. They come in various sizes. Sometimes the fruit
is arranged in rows and tiers, but more often it is left in a
jumble. The rows are better, of course. The six-basket carrier
is invaluable for the little baskets. In packing peaches, the use
of corrugated caps and excelsior pads is especially recom-
mended. A thick pad under the lid of a carrier will hold the
fruit solid, and will prevent the top layer bruising. Always use
corrugated boards under hamper lids. It pays. Quinces may
be handled in the same way as pears. Grading these two fruits
must be done by hand, and the different classes separated as
described for apples. Plums have no special package. Peach
baskets and boxes, grape baskets and strawberry boxes are
good carriers for them. They should be arranged in rows,
but need little wrapping, only the lining paper and the cor-
rugated caps. Cherries are best nicely arranged in rows in flat
wooden boxes. They can be marketed in strawberry boxes, but
this appears to be a makeshift. Ten-pound baskets some-
times are seen. Grapes should be left to wilt for twenty-four
hours before they are graded, and then put into baskets hold-
ing three, five, eight and ten pounds. These baskets are shipped
in crates, and never are unpacked until they reach the eaters.
If it is desired to hold grapes for quite a while in cold storage,
or in refrigator cars, they must be packed in barrels and half-
barrels, with cork "sawdust" as a filler between bunches.

Drying, processing, making apple-butter, peach- and pear-
butter, and vinegar, etc., will use up all bruised fruits. We can
not give details here, but the tools and labor involved are within
reach of every grower. Learn about them and realize on the
windfalls and drops.

As for selling, it's mostly up to you. You can grow good
fruit and throw it on the regular market. If you have graded
and packed it right, you hardly can fail to make a profit — get
from $i to $2 per bushel for apples, say, and other fruits in
proportion. But "the man worth while" will not be satisfied
with what the regular market gives him. He will look up his
own consumers, or will get acquainted with big retailers or with
a good commission-man, then stick to the same people until
mutual confidence and dependence are established. They will
appreciate the extra care given to the fruit, and pay high prices
for it. Sometimes buyers will come to the orchard and take all
the fruit you grow at a certain price, or you may be able to
work up a trade in shipping your fruit to users all over the coun-
try. Unless you can do this, or know your commission house
very well, we strongly advise getting buyers to come to the

129

HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT

orchard and buy for cash. You should grade and pack your
fruit, however, with all care, and you should keep in touch with
the market.

The very lest way to get the most money out of fine fruit
is through growers' organizations. Selling conditions in the
East at present are nothing more than a jumble. A few growers
have located a market for their product, and are getting good
prices, but for the great majority of growers there is nothing
better than what some one or two buyers offer. If half of our
eastern men could see for themselves how fruit is sold in the
West, they would do things differently by the time next year's
crop is ready to be sold.

In the West, a smaller or larger number of growers will
get together, agree on standard grading and packing, adopt
a label for the association, provide storage and shipping facil-
ities in some cases (but this is not vital), hire inspectors, who
will see that all fruit is up to the standard in every way, and sell
all the fruit through one of the officers. Very high prices are
secured in this way. The big buyers know they can depend on
the quality of the fruit and the correctness of the pack, and will
hotly compete among themselves for your fruit. The processing
of second-grade fruit and the handling of by-products, securing
good freight rates, buying spraying materials, equipments, and
buying market packages, are all done a hundred per cent
better by an organization than by the individual orchardists.
It does not matter what kind of fruit is grown.

On the Delaware and Maryland Peninsula, and in certain
sections of the middle West, another kind of organized selling
is carried on effectively. Growers' unions, or farmers' unions'
are formed, officers elected, and these men seek out markets
for every product raised. They have an office, or remain near
the station or landing, all the time during season, and promptly
buy everything offered them (for cash or on consignment)
at highest market rates. No profit is made, and the total
of the prices received is given to growers, after the small run-
ning expenses are subtracted. The commission-men in the
cities send their buyers to the stations to compete with the
union buyers, and many times individuals will do the same.
The buyers keep cars waiting all the time, and forward stuff
immediately. It is a poor community that cannot load several
cars a day all through harvesting season.

The organized selling idea and practice is what the East
lacks. Hardly any community would fail to make a big success
of such a plan, if two or three live men would start a movement
for it. We know that it is successful, and we strongly urge all
our friends to try some such system for handling the next crop.
We shall be glad to tell you in detail of the by-laws and
organization of some of the Peninsula organizations if you
will write us.

One last word. Keep posted. Read farm and fruit papers
and books. They will aid you in many a problem, and will help
you to make your orchard a success and your life interesting and
worth while.

130

PICKING, PACKING AND MARKETING

SUMMARY

Half of the failures to make fruit-growing profitable come
from careless and improper picking, grading, packing and selling.

Pick the fruit at the right time. Handle it as you would
eggs, rush it into cool storage, carefully grade it into three or
four classes, and pack it so it will reach the consumer in as good
shape as it grew.

With much fruit to handle, grading machines are time- and
money-savers.

Grading and packing are almost a science. They require
study and skill, and their importance must be realized more than
in the past.

Always put your name and address on your packages of
fruit. Name your orchard, and get an attractive design for
package labels if possible.

You can use nearly all culls by drying or processing. Can-
ning, preserving, making syrups, juices, cider, vinegar, etc., are
very profitable methods of preventing waste.

In selling, get acquainted with good commission men, or
with retail customers, and stick to them, or invite the buyers
to your orchard and sell for cash, you to pick and pack the
fruit.

If possible, organize a fruit-grower's association. Such an
organization will surely be able to get 50 per cent more for
all fruit produced than individual growers can. It is the solu-
tion of a great many problems that puzzle eastern growers.
Through it buying and selling are done from a commanding
position, rather than from a begging one. An association can
dictate terms to buyers, instead of buyers making the offers.

TJERE'S a simple,
•t^- strong, low-priced
light-draft riding harrow which

covers more surface with less draft than any
other cultivator made. It works right' up to
the trees and under lowest branches without
harming fruit or leaves in the least

Fbt»kitet»
Liht Draft Harrows,

/or* Or

make it possible to thoroughly cultivate 20 to 30 acres per day with two horses.
They lift and turn the soil and leave it in slight waves, thus exposing more
surface to the chemical action of the sun and rain. They make a perfect
dust-mulch, which conserves maximum amount of moisture.

Write for Free Trial Offer—and Booklet.
We will ship to responsible parties on 30 days' riskless free trial.
kFree booklet, "Modern Orchard Tillage," tells the whole story.

LIGHT DRAFT HARROW CO.

Blank St.. Manhalltown, Iowa

Grow Fruit Where Fruit -Growing
Is Easiest and Marketing Best

Why spend days and weeks, and hundreds of dollars, overcoming
bugs and fungi, when you can so easily start growing fruit on the
Delaware-Maryland Peninsula, where, on account of salt air, cool
nights, etc., enemies trouble trees less than anywhere else in America?

The Peninsula is not South, nor entirely North. It has the cool
nights and fresh breezes of northern mountain and seashore locali-
ties, the tempered winters and much sunshine of southern lands.
The ocean and the bays are only a few miles away. Spring frost
damage is largely absent. The air is moisture-laden all summer.

Peninsula soil is deep, rich sandy loam, or sand, loam and clay. Roots
go far and deep. Plant food will not leach. Some of the land has
been farmed for two hundred years and still is rich as ever. Mar-
keting facilities are wonderfully good. You can sell everything
you produce at the railroad station nearest you for highest
market prices. For selling their product, growers of the Peninsula
are organized in a manner equaled m only one or two other localities
in the country.

Get our book, '• Where Markets Seek You." It tells all about
these advantages for the farmer and fruit grower — shows you with
many pictures taken last summer, in the orchards and farms and
markets of the best place to live in the country. Land is
cheap. We will help you get acquainted. Let us hear from you.

The Peninsula Real Estate Company

North B Street, Selbyville, Delaware

Special Apple Box

Pack Fruit Right!

Shiftless packing accounts for half of the
failures to get big returns from fruit. Modern
markets pay high prices and demand trainload
after trainload of fruit, but it must be packed
right. The fruit must reach the consumer in
practically as good shape as it left the orchard.

Intelligent packing in boxes, hampers, baskets
and crates is not difficult, but the right kinds
of these packages are not to be had everywhere.
Some are made of poorly adapted material,
others are wrong in size and shape. It often is
difficult to get delivery on time. Many growers
are paying too much because modern packages
are comparatively new to them, and they
hardly know what is a fair price.

COLES & COMPANY

will help you out. This firm manufactures its
own packages, has mills and factories in the
best lumber-producing sections, and gets cheap
water and rail freight rates to its warehouses.
It can ship on short notice any reasonable
number of any package.

Standard and special apple boxes, shipped
knocked down, printed on one or both ends in
car lots without extra charge. Hampers, all
sizes; peach baskets, all sizes; Cole's Improved
Picking basket, with swinging steel handle;
Arrow Brand sweet gum berry baskets, excel-
sior cushions, corrugated caps, lace paper
circles, packing paper and tissue fruit wrappers.
Get prices on what you need — you will be sur-
prised how low they are. You will be pleased
with the quality of the packages and our
prompt service.

COLES & COMPANY

Package Dept, 109-111 Warren St., New York City
Be sure to address "Package Department"

Hamper

Peach Basket

Corrugated Caps

Excelsior Cushions for Barrel
and Baskets

ARPOW

BRAND

Coles' Improved Swinging-
handle Picking Basket

Sweet Gum Berry
Basket

The genuine "CUTAWAY" tools are used and endorsed by suc-
cessful orchardists from coast to coast and from bay to gulf

In orchard work, the driver can cultivate under
the trees and below the low limbs, the horses not
interfering with the branches. The double levers give
the driver full control of tool at all times. For regu-
lar farm work, the gangs can be drawn together.

UTAWAY

Single Action Orchard Harrow

Every orchardist and fruit-
grower should have one or more
of these labor savers and fruit
makers. They will positively pay
for themselves in one season. To
investigate is to be convinced.
Thorough cultivation makes large crops. Stirring the
soil lets in the air, sunshine and new life, and kills foul
vegetation. The "CUTAWAY" disc slices, stirs, lifts,
twists and aerates the soil. CLARK'S "CUTAWAY" TOOLS
run lighter and do better work than any other machine.
Lasts a lifetime.

Send today for new catalog, "Intensive Cultivation."
Of course, it's free.

CUTAWAY HARROW COMPANY

200 Main Street Higganum. Connecticut

y. ff. Hale, the "Peach King," -writes: "The Double Action 'CUT-
AWAY' is a splendid tool. I use it in polishing1 off my peach orchards
several times a year. A good pair of horses handle it all right."

How to Sell YOUR Apples for
Three Dollars a Bushel — We
Can Help You Get WESTERN
Prices for EASTERN Fruit

Eastern-grown fruit sells in New York and other big markets for one-half to
two-thirds of the prices paid for western-grown fruit that is not a whit better.

Eastern fruit is better flavored and will keep longer; shipped only two or
three hundred miles, it reaches consumers in better condition than is possible
with fruit shipped two or three thousand miles.

Eastern fruit is superior in many ways to western fruit, and it ought to
bring more money. It doesn't solely because Western growers are better
organized, and know better how to sell than those of the East. When a
grower or a community learns how to grade and pack, and has standardized
the quality of fruit shipped, as well as the condition and size of packages,
buyers come after the fruit and pay the prices asked.

There is no secret about getting high prices regularly. System and organi-
zation are the things. Twentieth century methods bring the high prices. If
you grow good fruit, we can help you get three dollars a bushel for apples,
and proportionate prices for other fruits. We have helped Florida growers
get more ^or their citrus fruits than they ever did before. The citrus fruit
industry is on a firmer basis there in consequence, and the whole state has
been benefited. This is but one instance. Let us tell you how you can
simplify your selling problem, and realize the most money.

The McFarland Publicity Service

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

March

Keep Posted. Make Hundreds
of Dollars More Than You Do

A man in Maryland wanted to spray a peach
orchard, but his brother, who owned a half interest,
wouldn't allow it. Result: that fall the crop was
only 30% of normal in quality, and brought little
profit. The first man had seen indications of a cer-
tain fungus, and was partly posted, but he wasn't
sure, and the second man didn't know anything
about it.

A man in Missouri had a fine crop of apples,
which had been well cared for— but he lacked mar-
keting knowledge. He didn't know what his apples
were worth; he didn't know how to grade them,
pack them, where to get packages, or who would
buy the fruit. A buyer visited his orchard, offered
him $3,000 for his crop on the trees, and he ac-
cepted. This was just before picking. The buyer
picked almost $20,000 worth of apples from this man's trees. The orchardist
had actually lost at least $10,000 by his failure to keep posted.

Another man got to thinking of fruit after he had taken a trip to the city,
and when he came home he planted 1,800 trees of a variety which was not in
market demand, and what was worse, planted the block solid with the one var-
iety, which would not pollinate itself. He now has to top-work all those trees.

Don't throw away so much money There's just one way to keep posted

These are not exceptional cases. Read The Fruit-Grower, an d_read The
either. There are buyers who

are

simply look for the unposted
man, and when they find him,
they soak him hard. The
need of keeping posted runs
through all the fruit-grow-
ing game. You can gain a
year's growth sometimes by
some kink in planting, save
ten dollars here and fifty dol-
lars there by a little different
spraying, increase the bushels
and the quality by careful
r doubh

Fruit-Growers' Guide-Book. The
Fruit-Grower is easily the
leading fruit and farm paper
of America. It is so much
more meaty and practical
that no others claim to be
as good. It will tell you
what growers are doing to
get bigger and better crops,
will tell you where to get
supplies, what your crop _is
worth, and where to sell it.
The things it will tell you will
be worth to you more in a
year than the best man you
could hire.

pruning, or double your money
receipts by properly grading Rl
and packing your fruit.

THE FRUIT-GROWER'S GUIDE-BOOK has almost 300 pages, cloth bound
and is a business book from the first page on. This advertisement appears in a
very good fruit book, but are not two heads wiser than one ? Our chapters on
enemies, spraying, harvesting, grading, packing, processing and marketing, are
particularly complete. Where words will not tell the story clearly enough, pic-
tures and drawings are used. For instance, with it as a guide, you can identify
any bug or fungus; diagnose any fruit tree disease; prune any kind of a fruit
tree in the proper manner; you can put smoothly-peeled peaches, whole or
halved, into the small glass jars you see in the city groceries and you can do
a hundred other things you will be called upon to do on a fruit farm, which
will pay you the extra money.

$2 VALUE FOR $1

Send us $i NOW, and we will send you The
Fruit-Grower one year, and The Fruit-Grower's
Guide-Book. The subscription price of The Fruit-
Grower is $i per year, and the price of the book
is $i — you are getting $2 value, considering the
regular price. In reality you are getting a $500
value, for the magazine and the book will be worth
that much to you if you have not had them before.
Properly read, they amount to a thorough educa-
tion in fruit culture. How much would that be
worth to you? Send your order in at once, as this
offer will not hold indefinitely, and you may be
missing some good chances right now, which the
magazine or the book will tell you of.

THE FRUIT-GROWER

ST. JOSEPH

MISSOURI

Choose the Pioneer!

The average sprayer has been on the market
only a few years — five or ten is about the limit
for a good many of them.

We commenced making Deming Sprayers in
the early 90's ; we have been in the spray pump
business for nearly twenty years.

That gives us a big start — we've kept right at
it, every year up to and including this present
one, trying out our own machines. We've
watched them at work in our customers' orchards
— tried them under every kind of severe test to
find out where they needed improving — and
have brought the original types of 1891 to the
compact, well-balanced, enduring machines with
which the growers of the country are so familiar.

We make several styles of power outfits, and
more than 15 different hand machines beside.
Our nozzles are known everywhere, as well as
our attachments, hose and other supplies.

MORE ON NEXT PAGE— READ ON

THE DEMING "PREMIER." 21A or 3Y2 H. P. Engine, Air-cooled

Deming Spray Pumps

Used By Successful
Orchardists Everywhere

A great many of whom, when buying additional equipment,
specify "Deming's" again. That, we think, is the strongest O.K.
they could give. Deming's Spray Pumps please the growers for
several good reasons:

They are designed right — well-balanced. Their construction is
substantial, rigid — all parts in constant alignment. No surplus
weight — a big feature in any orchard, particularly one on a
hillside.

They are built right. All parts touched by spray liquid are solid
brass — can't corrode. Other castings are made of durable, close-
grained gray iron, carefully inspected before assembling.

They work right — maintaining a strong, steady pressure, varying
from 80 to 250 pounds, according to the number of nozzles. The
spray is driven hard and in a fine, misty fog against the branch —
and it sticks there, doing the most lasting good.

Deming Outfits are handled by leading hardware dealers; stocks
carried in principal cities. Catalogue free — we'll include^a copy
of Prof. Weed's valuable little book, " Spraying for Profit," if you
mention having seen this advertisement in "How to Grow and
Market Fruit." State how many trees or acres of orchard you have.

THE DEMING COMPANY

105 SUCCESS BUILDING SALEM, OHIO

Manufacturers of Hand and Power Pumps for All Uses
Compression Tank Systems. Hydraulic Rams. Etc.

THE DEMING "CENTURY"

THE DEMING "SAMSON"

Deming Spray Pumps

Use Orchard Brand Sprays
For EFFECTIVE Control

Solution

Soluble Oil

ArsenateofLead

Atomic Sulphur

(The greatest
fungicide)

COOPERATION

Means
Mutual Benefits

Our customers receive,
free of charge, or of
obligation, the most
valuable orchard in-
formation and help.

Write for Orchard Census
Blanks — they are free

Oriole Weed
Killer

Kills grass and weeds
anywhere

Atomic Sulphur

and
Arsenite of Zinc

For potatoes and
truck

You wouldn't spray your trees with clear water, just for
the sake of spraying. You'd know it was time and money
wasted.

You spray to control "bugs," and you can't afford to
waste time and opportunity with spray mixtures that pro-
duce uncertain results — when you can get Orchard Brand
Mixtures. These solutions always do the work they are
intended to do, because the chemicals are combined right
and then tested, by makers who have developed great
skill through long study of orchard problems.

Shrewd, successful growers all over the United States
are using and recommending Orchard Brand Mixtures,
because they make results so much more certain, efficiency
so much greater, and final cost in relation to returns so
much less than any other spraying mixture you could use.

There are wide differences among the varieties of fruit in
their behavior in orchards, their resistance to insects and
fungi, and in effects of chemical treatment on them. The
most successful orchardists are those who understand these
differences and apply their knowledge when spraying, prun-
ing and cultivating.

In the development of its business of making insecti-
cides and fungicides, the Thomsen Chemical Company has
worked along scientific lines for the past eight or ten years,
carefully accumulating knowledge of these differences and
of their bearing on orchard operations.

This store of information is at the service of fruit
growers. On request, we will furnish blanks for a census
of your orchard, on which you can fill in the varieties,
age of trees, soil conditions and other data. This will
enable us to give you many valuable hints that will mean
dollars in your pocket.

Write for some blanks and for information about Or-
chard Brand Spraying Mixtures now. The time to plan
next year's spraying is months before you start. You
don't know what handy, efficient spraying is till you get
acquainted with us — let us hear from you.

THOMSEN CHEMICAL COMPANY

Atomic Division, BALTIMORE, MD.

INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS

Acme harrow, 4.

Asparagus, 13, 19.

Air drainage, 3, 35.

Aphis, 63.

Apple box, 82, 133.

Apple trees, headed right, 41.

Asparagus, 13, 19.

Bagging grapes, 100.
Barrel sprayer, 64.
Bartlett pear, 117.
Baskets, picking 82, 133.
Baskets, peach, 99, 133.
Beans, 14.
Bitter rot, 58.
Blossoms, 42.
Blossoms, grape, 117.
Blotch, 58.
Bolting, 57.
Box compressor, 81.
Boxes, 133.
Buds, frozen, 63.

Carriers, peach, 99.

Cedar rust, 58.

Chemicals, 138.

Cherries, 99, 117, 118.

Chicken-yard planting, 35.

Clover, 13.

Cluster buds, 63.

Cooperative marketing, 118.

Codlin moth, spraying stage for, 64.

Cover crop, 13, 14.

Crotch splits, 57.

Cultivation, 3, 4, 20, 25.

Cutting-back, 41.

Cutting, wrong, 42.

Curl leaf, 58.

Diagonal pack, 82.
Drainage, 13.
Dust mulch, 25.
Dwarf trees, 13, 36, 42.
Dynamite, 14, 26.

Exposure, 3.

Facing barrels, 82.
Frog eye, 58.
Frost damage, 63.
Fruit stand, n8.

Garden, fruit, 13.

Grafting, 57.

Greenhouse, 117.

Grading, 117.

Grapes, 3, 99.

Grape, bearing habit of, 117.

Grapes under glass, 117.

Hampers, 81, 82, 133.
Harrows, 4, 134, 152-
Heads, low, 82.
Heading, wrong, 42.
Heeling-in, 26.

Irrigation, 14.

Inter-crop, 14, 19, 35, "8.

Leaf curl, 58.
Legumes, 3, 13.
Lime-sulphur, 138.

Marketing, 118.
Market packages, 118-133.
Mice damage, 20.
Moisture conserving, 25.

Nipping, 48.
Nozzles, 8z.

Orchard plan, 25.

Orchard records, 47.

Orchard, young, 4, 13, 14, 20, 81,

118.
Ornamental fruit trees, 42.

Packing, 81, 82, 99, 117, 118.

Peach, headed right, 35, 41, 47.

Peaches, Ray, 99.

Peach orchard, 13, 19, 35.

Pears, 3, 36, 41, 117.

Peas, 3.

Picking, 82.

Planting system, 25, 26.

Planting, too close, 35.

Pollination, insufficient, 63.

Power sprayers, 64, 81, 136.

Pruning, 3, 41, 42.

Pruning tools, 47.

Processing, 82.

Quince, 100.

Roadside planting, 3.
Rust, 58.

San Jose" Scale on fruit, 63.

Scab, 58.

Selling, 1 1 8.

Shipping, 82, 118.

Sod mulch, 13, 19, 20, 36, 48.

Split forks, 57.

Spraying, 57, 64, 8x.

Sprayers, 57, 64, 81, 136, 137.

Spraying house, 57.

Scab, spraying stage for, 63.

Staking, grape, 99, 100.

Storing, 8x.

Strawberries, 14, 19, 25, 100, 118.

Tags, 47-

Tanks, 57.

Take-home baskets, 82.

Thinning, 36, 42, 48.

Tomatoes, 19, 25.

Top working, 57.

Tree butchery, 42.

Trees, young bearing, 20, 26, 42, 8x.

Trellises, 99, 100, 117.

Vineyard, 99, 100.

Way orchard, 20.
Windbreaks, 4, 48.
Wrappings, 8a.
Whitewashing, 3.

139

INDEX OF SUBJECTS TREATED

Galley 2. Index. Harrison.

Acme harrow, 4.

Air drainage, 3, 35, 44, 46, 60.

Air flow, 46.

Air spaces in soil, 37.

Ammoniacal copper carbonate, 91.

Anthracnose, 87.

Antiseptic, 77.

Aphides, 84.

Aphis, 63.

Apple spraying, 84.

Apple enemies, 104.

Apple box, 82, 133.

Apple orchard, 35.

Apple, 102.

Apple box compressor, 81.

Apple trees, headed right, 41.

Arsenite of zinc, 86.

Arsenate of lead, 76, 77, 86, 92.

Asparagus, 13, 19, 40.

Asparagus beetle, 86.

Bacteria, 7, 21, 69.

Bagging grapes, 100.

Bartlett pear, 117.

Baskets, picking 82.

Baskets, peach, 99.

Baskets, 122, 126, 133.

Barrel, facing apple, 82.

Barrel sprayer, 64.

Berry moth, 87.

Bear, making trees, 101.

Beans, 14.

Bitter rot, 58.

Blossoms, 42, 56.

Blossoms, pinching, 68.

Blossoms, grape, 117.

Blossom shucks, 64.

Blotch, 86, 158.

Blight, 86.

Black rot, 87.

Blue beetle, 87.

Bolting trees, 57, 98.

Bordeaux mixture, 77, 85, 90, 91,

138.

Bordeaux-poison, 94.
Borers, 94.
Boxes, 126, 133.
Books, 135.
Box compressor, 81.
Brown rot, 86.
Bridge grafting, 97.
Burying trees, 53.
Buds, disappointing, 68.
Buds, frozen, 63.
Butchery, tree, 42.

Capillarity, xi.
Canker worms, 84, 86.
Carriers, peach, 99.
Cedar rust, 58, 84.
Chemical action, soil, 21.
Chemicals, 138.
Cherry, 86, 99, in, 117.
Cherry enemies, 112.
Cherry cultivation, in.

Cherry orchard, 118.

Chicken yard planting, 35.

Cloud, 86.

Cluster buds, 63.

Clover, 13.

Costs, 5.

Cover crops, 12, 13, 14, 23, 27,

28.

Cover crop seed, 28.
Codlin moth, 64, 84, 105,106.
Co-operative marketing, 118.
Crops, normal, 18.
Crops every year, 74.
Cross pollination, 54, 56, 103, 119.
Crotch splits, 57.
Cultivation, early spring, 38.
Cultivation, mulching, and other

orchard treatment, 33-44.
Cultivation, 20, 25, 34, 43, 45, 107.
Cutting limbs, 66, 69.
Cutting, wrong, 42.
Cutting back, 41.
Currant, 86.
Curculios, 84, 86, 87.
Culture, 34, 133.
Curl leaf, 56.
Cut worms, 97.

Diagonal pack, 82.

Directing growth, (see pruning),

66.

Diseases, 75, 77, 105-121.
Double crops, 32, 40.
Drainage, 13.
Dust mulch, 12, 16, 25, 37, (see

moisture)

Dwarf trees, 13, 36, 42.
Dynamite, 14, 15, 16, 26, 34, 39.

Enemies,j6, 65, 73, 74, 78, 98, 105-121.
Elevation, 44.
Essentials, fourteen, 6.
Exposure, 3, 45, 49.

Facing barrels, 82.

Farmers' unions, 130.

Fertility, 10, n.

Fertilizing, 32, 59.

Feeding fruit trees, 16, 18, 73.

Feeding fruit trees, summary, 33.

Fillers, 32, 59.

Fire blight, 77.

Fog, 46, 76.

Formulas, 89, 96.

Food, elements, 18.

Frost damage, 44, 63.

Frosty locations, 50.

Frost fighting, 51, 52.

Fruit stand, n.

Fruit buds, 67, 68, 73.

Fruit spurs, creating, 68, 69.

Freezing temperatures of buds and

bloom, 45.

Freezing, partial, 45.
Fungi, 69, 75, 76, 105-121.
Fungicides and insecticides, 94.

140

INDEX OF SUBJECTS TREATED

Fungi — when to spray for, and

remedies, 84.
Fungicides, 77, 89.

Garden, fruit, 13.
Gooseberry, 86.
Grading, 117, 122, 125.
Grading, standard, 123.
Grading machines, 124.
Grafting, 57, 97.
Grapes, 3, 86, 99, 112.
Grapes, management, 112.
Grapes, pruning, 113.
Grape enemies, 114.
Grapes under glass, 117.
Grapes, bearing habit of, 117.
Greenhouse, 117.
Growth checking, 68.
Growers' organizations, 130.

Hampers, 81, 82, 126, 133.
Hamilton grading machine, 124.
Harrows, 16, 37, 132, 134.
Harrowing, 16, 22, 37, 48.
Hardpan, 12.
Heads, low, 82.
Heading-back, 65.
Heading trees, 66.
Heading, wrong, 42.
Hellebore, 86.
Heeling-in, 55, 26, 102.
Heating, artificial, 46, 51.
Hitchings' system, 40.
Houses, fruit, 124.
Humus, 6, 15, 19, 23, 37.

Insects — when to spray for, and

remedies, 84.
Insecticides, 92.

Insecticides and fungicides, 94.
Insects, chewing, 75.
Insects, sucking, 75.
Inter-crops, 14, 19, 35, 40, 118.
Irrigating, 9, 10, 14.

Keeping posted, 83, 135.
Kerosene emulsion, 93.

Land, fruit, 132.

Latitude, 45.

Labels, 128.

Leaf buds, 67.

Leaf hopper, 87.

Leaf spots, 84, 86.

Leaf curl, 58.

Leaf feeding, 73.

Leaching, 24.

Lewis Orchard, 3, 19, 20.

Legumes, 3, 7, 13, 23, 24, 27, 28, 33,

38, 43-
Light, 6.
Lime, 6, 22.
Lime action, 19, 21.
Lime-sulphur, 76, 138.
Lime-sulphur solution, 77, 86.
Lime-sulphur, self-boiled, 77, 86.
Lime-sulphur, self-boiled, how to

make, 89.
Lime-sulphur, diluted, 90.

Lime-sulphur solution, how to make,

92.

Lime-sulphur-poison, 94.
Living enemies of trees, 74.

Magazines, 135.

Market packages, 133.

Marketing, 6, 122-131, 118.

Manure, 31, 62.

Methods of keeping moisture, 10, 17.

Mice, 84.

Mice damage, 20, 38, 84.

Miscible oil, 76, 86, 93.

Mildew, 87.

Mixing spray materials, 83.

Moisture, 7, 9, n, 21, 37.

Moisture, conserving, 25.

Mulching, 34, 38, 52, 62, 119

Nipping, 148.

Nitrate of soda, 30, 62.

Nitrogen (see legumes), 6, 22, 23.

Nozzles, 80, 181.

Number of trees to acre, 60.

Nursery, 54-56.

Orchard treatment, 33, 34.

Orchard systems, 43.

Orchard heaters, 52.

Orchard location, 56.

Orchard, young, 4, 13, 14, 20, 81, 118.

Orchard records, 47, 97.

Orchard plan, 25.

Organizations, 130.

Organic matter, 6, 15, 19, 23, 27.

Ornamental fruit trees, 42.

Oyster shell scale, 84.

Packing in boxes, 81, 82, 127.

Packing, 99, 117, 118, 122, 133.

Packing in barrels, 82, 126.

Pasturing orchards, 39.

Papers, 135.

Packages, market, (see varieties),

126, 129, 133, 135.
Peach tree, headed right, 35, 41, 47.
Peach enemies, 108.
Peach, 87, 107.
Peach orchard, 13, 19, 35.
Peaches, packing, 129.
Peaches, Ray, 99.
Peach baskets, 99.
Pear, 87, 105, 106.
Pear trees, 36, 41.
Pears, packing, 128.
Pear orchard, 48, 105, 117.
Peas, 3, 27, 28.
Phosphorus, 6, 22, 23, 30.
Picking, 82, 122.
Picking baskets, 82, 133.
Poisoning, 86.

Pollenation, insufficient, 63.
Potash, 6, 22, 23, 29.
Power sprayers, 64, 79, 81, 136.
Plum, 88, 109.
Plant lice, 84, 96.
Plant foods, proportions and

amounts, 29.
Planting plans, 25, 26, 59, 60.

141

INDEX OF SUBJECTS TREATED

Planting, 34, 54-62, 102,

Planting, distance apart for, 59, 60.

Planting details, 61, 62.

Planting, too close, 35.

Plantation, 6.

Plowing, depth, 38.

Plowing, 21, 37.

Props, 73.

Processing, 82, 129.

Pruning, wrong, 42.

Pruning, when, 68.

Pruning tools, 47, 70.

Pruning, 41, 61, 65, 71.

Pruning, correct, 3.

Pumps, 79.

Quality of fruit, 44, 74.
Quince, 88, ipo, no.
Quince enemies, no.

Ray Peaches, 99.

Raspberry, 88.

Rainfall, 10.

Rabbits, 94.

Regular bearing, 74.

Remedies, 76.

Ripening of wood, 43, 46.

Ripening, 22, 37, 43-45.

Roots, 10.

Roots, length of, 38.

Roots, pruning, 70.

Rollers, 16, 37.

Roadside planting, 3.

Rose chafer, 86.

Rot, 87.

Rust, 38, 84, 86.

San Jos6 scale, 63, 84, 86.

Scales, 84, 96.

Scab, 58, 86.

Scab, spraying stage for, 63.

Scuffy scale, 84.

Selling, 118, 122, 129, 130, 132, 134.

Slope, 49, 102.

Shipping, 82, 1 1 8.

Shaping trees, 66.

Season, temperature, 45.

Soil, 6, 7, 8, 18, 21, 56, 102, 105, 107.

Sod mulch, 13, 16, 19, 20, 32, 36, 38,

43, 48, 1 06.
Soil, subduing, 34.
Soil improvement, 3.
Small fruits, 88.
Size in fruit, 123.
Special treatment, 7, 102.
Spraying mixtures, 89, 138.
Spray mixtures, dormant, 76.
Spray mixtures, foliage, 76.
Spraying mixtures, commercial, 80,

89, 90, 92, 93, 138.
Spraying house, 57.
Sprayers, 78-83, 136, 137.
Spraying, 64, 75, 78, 83, 98.
Spraying pressure, 78.
Spraying calendar, 84.
Strawberries, 14, 19, 25, 4°, 89, too,

115-121.

Strawberries as inter-crop, 115.
Strawberry plants, 116.

Strawberries, planting, 119.

Strawberries, sex in, 119. 120.

Strawberry enemies, 120, xax.

Storage, 81, 124.

Storage house, 125.

Soluble oils, 93.

Soap solution, 86, 03-

Spores, 76.

Splits, 70, 98.

Split forks, 57.

Stayman Winesap, 20.

Stone wall, 13.

Staking, grape, 99, 100.

Summary on frost, 53.

Subsoil, 7, 15.

Supplying plant food, 22.

Sun scald, 46.

Smudging, 41

Tags, tree, 47, 97.

"Take-home" baskets, 82.

Tanks, 83, 157.

Temperatures to keep fruit, 25.

Tent caterpillar, 84, 86.

Terracing, 39.

Texture of soil, 8

Tillage, 16.

Tomatoes, 19, 25, 30, 88.

Top working, 97, 157.

Tobacco, 93.

Tissue wrapping, 82.

Thinning, 36, 42, 48, 71, 74.

Thermometers, 51.

Training trees, 70.

Triangular system, 60.

Trees pedigree of, 54.

Trees, 5, 6, 54, 102.

Tree diet, balanced, 30, 31.

Trees, young, 20, 26, 37,^42, 81.

Tree butchery, 42.

Trellises, 99, 100, 117.

Varieties, 6, 56.

Varieties, different spraying, 77, 78,

87, 88.

Varieties, apple, 103.
Varieties, pear, 106.
Varieties, peach, 108.
Varieties, plum, 109.
Varieties, strawberry, 120.
Vegetable matter, 6, 15, 19, 23, 27, 37.
Vineyard, 99, 100.

Water, 6.

Water, too much, 7, 9.

Water, too little, 9, 11.

Water, amount required, 10.

Warmth, 6.

Water influence, 45.

Wet feet, 4.

Windbreaks, 4, 46, 48, 50, 98.

Wind, 47-

Whitewashing, 3.

Way orchard, 20.

Wagons, fruit, 123.

Wounds, 69.

Wrapping, 82.

Yellows, 77-

142

THIS BOOK IS DUE ONf THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW

AN INITIAL FINE OP 25 CENTS

WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN
THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY
WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH
DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY
OVERDUE.

MAY 17 1915

LD 21-95m-7,'37

299655

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY