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THE APPLE ORCHARD.

Geo. C. Hill, Rosendale, Wis.

When a couple of young people get a piece of land and start to make a new home, one of the things thought desirable and provided for is the fruit orchard. Sometimes it is the man that thinks first of the orchard, but more often it is the wife, she naturally appreciating the value of fruit in the home.

On account of its beautiful color and tempting flavor, some have thought the apple was the fruit plucked by the first lady of the land with which to entice her lord, but unless the native apple of paradise was better of color and flavor than the wild apples of our forests, I do not think the temptation to partake would have been very strong.

The apple is acknowledged to be the king of fruits, because of the variety in flavor, color and long season of usefulness, and its adaptability to a wide range of soil and climate. It is grown with more or less success in nearly all the counties of Wisconsin. Some sections, as the red clay soils of the eastern counties, and the rolling clay lands of western Wisconsin, are well adapted to orcharding. Fairly good results are had on the prairie soils, while the sandy valleys give the poorest results.

Commercial Orchards.

If one is located on some of the first-mentioned lands, and has a liking for apple growing, the business may be profitable. In that case, I would plant few varieties, mostly Duchess, Wealthy and Northwestern Greening. There are other sorts desirable for show and to eat, but we want apples to sell-money makers-enough of one variety to fill a box car. These varieties are hardy and productive, the fruit is handsome, good quality and good sellers; the trees are shapely and lasting. Some question the quality of the Northwestern Greening, but its size, beauty and long keeping habit keep it in the list of profitable market varieties.

The Farmer's Orchard.

The farmer's orchard is another affair. The family need a variety of fruit; early, medium and late, of various flavors, size, colors, tart and sweet, suitable for both eating and cooking. Hardiness may be partially sacrificed for quality. The Red, Astrachan tree does not live forever, but will produce fruit enough to pay for planting.

Varieties for Home Use.

For an orchard of 25 trees, I would suggest two Duchess, two Astrachan, four Wealthy, four Fameuse, two Talman Sweet, two Golden Russett, two Northwestern Greening, one Sweet Fameuse, one Roman Stem, one Perry Russett, one Hyslop, one Whitney No. 20, one Sweet Russett. The three last are crabs. In addition, I would plant a few Virginia crabs for top working.

Every farmer, or some of the family, should know how to graft, a very simple art. After these crab stocks have been planted one year or more, desirable half-hardy, or some new variety may be grafted onto them near the top of the stem. Now we have a hardy stock, and in this way may grow some choice kinds like Northern Spy, Grimes' Golden, Fall Orange, and other desirable of the less hardy varieties.

How to Get the Trees.

Send to several Wisconsin nurserymen for catalogues and prices. If the list of varieties is not complete, or prices too high, look further. In most catalogues, trees are offered for 18 to 20 cents by the dozen or 50, and the transportation will add two to four cents. A good, young apple tree is worth $1, but we can get all we want for 25 cents each, or less.

Traveling tree peddlers may benefit the community in one way: they induce many to buy trees that would not otherwise get them. It is a question, however, whether the results are much

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Over by the Orchard where the Snow Apples Grow, on Farm of Geo. C. Hill &

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an extent. Never plow deep near the tree. It would be better if the plow is banished from the orchard after a few seasons' growth of the trees. The orchard is no place for a grain crop. Stock must not be allowed in it, not even the rabbit. It should not be allowed to go to grass. Clover is all right if we can keep the blue grass out.

The Grass Method of Orcharding.

A good deal of discussion is going on about the grass mulch method of orcharding. I believe it is all right under some conditions, but though it is successfully practiced on our farm, I do not like to advocate the method in public. Most farmers have too much grass already with their trees for their own or their owner's good. The orchard is mowed or pastured; the trees are sod bound, stunted, starved, drought sick, unproductive. I am acquainted with one productive orchard in Wisconsin that is in grass. It contains about 100 trees, many of them 30 years old. About one-third of the number are Fameuse. The orchard was in cultivation 12 or 15 years. The trees were headed low and cultivation became difficult. Then it was seeded to clover. After some years, June grass took possession of the ground. The grass mulch method would cut the grass and pile it under the trees to keep the soil moist and make fertility. Our practice is to take off one crop of grass and top-dress liberally with stable manure. turing is allowed. The second growth of grass makes a cover crop for winter protection. Any small trees liable to be girdled are banked with earth, or coal ashes. The low habit of the trees makes it too shady under the branches for grass to flourish. The tough sod is not found there. Fruit that falls to the ground meets a clean, comfortable reception. The trees have been longer lived than those planted on neighboring farms with different treatment. No trees were lost or apparently injured during the destruc tive winter of 1898 and 1899.

No pas

Scarcely any blight has occurred. Yellow transparent trees have been in bearing several years without blighting, while some planted on the edge of the garden are doomed. The trees have been moderately pruned, water

sprouts and root sprouts cut away. Spraying is necessary to grow fine fruit. The necessity will increase. There are about fifteen varieties in the orchard, Duchess, Wealthy, Fam. euse, Plum Cider, Roman Stem and McMahan have been the most productive. The orchard is the most profitable acre on the farm.

Finally, my advice is, plant some apple trees, but do not practice any grass cultivation.

DISCUSSION.

Mr. Meyer-Wouldn't you recommend more winter apples than you have on your list?

Mr. Hill-Why, I thought a good proportion were winter apples. The Duchess and the Astrachan are the only two summer varieties there. The Wealthy is a fall apple and in some cases it may be a winter apple. Week before last we saw in one of our Institutes as fine a basket of Wealthys as I ever saw, just kept in a common cellar up to the last week in February.

Capt. Arnold-What is the best winter apple?

Mr. Hill-The best winter apple that we grow is the Grimes Golden. That is quite a tender variety, and yet we grow it top-grafted on crab stocks and it passes through our hard winters and never has shown any indication of dying.

Capt. Arnold-Is not mulching with stable manure injurious to the tree?

Mr. Hill-No, sir, unless you put it on too liberally and too close to the tree and get the ground so rich that you are exciting a growth that will injure it, but there are more orchards in Wisconsin starved than too liberally fed. When fertilizer is applied it should be spread over the entire surface of the ground.

Capt. Arnold-Can we grow Northern Spies or Baldwins?

Mr. Hill-We can grow Northern Spies in the way I spoke of. They are not long lived, however, but we can grow them by top working them on crab stocks, or by buying trees.

Capt. Arnold-I find the Hibernal will keep a little later into the winter.

Mr. Hill-I recommend you to get half a dozen Virginia crabs, for they are fast growing and you can put on anything desirable, or, if you lose a tree in the orchard, you can top graft one of these and put it in its place. We are all the while finding desirable apples in different portions of the state and we should get some scions and put them in.

Question-Have you any remedy to prevent winter killing?

Mr. Hill-We haven't needed any remedy, except in the winter of '98-'99, when the ground was bare and thousands, ten thousands of trees, died, and nursery stock was killed; but we didn't lose a tree, simply because of the grass mulch, I suppose. If we are sure we are going to have bare ground in the orchard it is necessary to have it protected in some way with a mulch.

A Member-Is it more apt to winter kill on a sandy soil than clay soil? Mr. Hill-I do not know, but I think it is.

Question-Would you cut back trees this coming spring that were set out last year?

Mr. Hill-No. If I am going to plant a tree this year I would prune it back to nearly a straight stem. Now a good many nurserymen and tree agents recommend to the farmers to plant the tree just as it comes from the nursery. I do not think that is the best way, because in digging that tree it has lost about half its roots and it won't make any growth. I have always seen my best results by cutting it down to about a straight stem.

Mr.. Meyer-Crabs will blight more than any other variety, will they not?

Mr. Hill-Some of the crabs; the Transcendent does and some of the others, but the Hyslop does not; the Whitney No. 20, which is called a crab, does not blight, and the Virginia crab does not blight. Do not plant any varieties that blight. Some of us differ about blight, and some cut it off and burn it, but do not go to that trouble. I think we always find blight when the new growth is rapid and soft and the weather comes out hot and muggy.

McGilvra-If

Mr. you want to know anything about blight send to the Experiment Station and get their bulletin on spraying.

Mr. Hill-Do they claim that spraying will prevent blight?

Mr. McGilvra-Yes, I think they do. A Member-At Madison they do not claim they can cure twig blight by spraying; the only way is to cut off the twig several inches below the blight and dip your knife in some solution that will kill the blight, and burn the twigs. When do you save your scions? When do you do your grafting?

Mr. Hill-It is best to cut the scions in the fall and put them in protection. I cut them about the time the ground freezes. I lay them in bundles, put on a label on a little piece of white wood, and they are put under a lot of leaves with some brush over them. In that way we get scions that the winter has not affected. It is best

to put them in just as the buds begin to start in the spring, not very early, because if we put the scion into the stock early, say several weeks before the sap begins to flow into the bud, there is nothing to keep those scions from drying up, but when the sap is flowing in the stock then it goes immediately into the scion and it buds out.

Question-Did you ever have any lice on apple trees?

Mr. Hill-Yes, we have had our orchard covered with them, but they disappeared and we haven't had any real trouble with oyster shell bark lice for fifteen years.

A Member-What do you recommend for sun scald?

Mr. Martiny-Better tell how to prevent it.

Mr. Hill-It can be prevented by shading the tree, but that comes a good deal more on certain varieties than others, also on certain kinds of soil. I think a sandy soil and a cold winter are very apt to cause that kind of trouble, but it can be prevented by setting up a board on the south side of the tree-a board six inches wide. Planted with the tree it will last a good many years. Then when we get these low headed trees to shade the stem, that is a protection,

Question-How high would you trim an apple tree?

Mr. Hill-A two-year-old tree, if properly grown, will be about four to five feet in height, and of course it will have some limbs down to perhaps within eighteen to twenty inches of the ground. I would cut the limbs out to about three to four feet from the ground. When I was a boy in

New England they started them way up so they could drive under them, and that would be necessary if we were going to keep up cultivation. But in our case, by heading low, when to they begin bear, the bearing branches touch the ground so that we can pick most of the fruit from the ground.

QUESTION BOX.

The Chairman-We have a little time left for general discussion if anyone has anything to say.

Mr. Meyer--We have a very fine herd of cows at Madison at the dairy barn, and they are fed, of course, a proper ration and well taken care of. I would like to know whether these COWS are a profitable investment to the state for the feed furnished them and the labor of taking care of them, calculating it on a butter basis. Of course, not calculating in the $20,000 building.

Prof. Humphrey-We keep an accurate record of all food that is fed to our dairy herd and of all the results. In the report for the last year we find that the profits returned, over and above the cost of feeding for the poorest cow, was $30, and the best cow was $78.88, and you can figure the labor off of that. Of course, our conditions there would be more expensive than yours on the farm. Some of our help is high-priced, but I am satisfied the herd would be self-sustaining provided we had no bad accidents, with the help we employ just in the dairy barn. We figure on the basis of the butter fat produced, and we put a value on the skim milk of 15 cents a hundred pounds, figuring the butter at 20 cents a pound, although butter has been somewhat higher than that for the past season.

Supt. McKerrow-One thing we must bear in mind-that our dairy herd is kept for experimental pur

poses, not for profit, but if they can show a profit or pay their way, it will be satisfactory.

Mr. Meyer-That is what I was thinking. If under these high-priced surroundings they can pay their way, we ordinary fellows ought to make a profit.

Prof. Emery-The experiment station is organized and maintained not for the purpose of making a profit, as an institution itself, but to conduct experiments which will save the farmers from losses that they would sustain if they carried on operations in certain ways, and to make clear profitable methods for doing farm work. The money is appropriated to conduct those experiments in order to save ourselves from losses, and these experiments must necessarily often prove expensive.

Mr. Meyer-I would like to inquire how many silos there are in the county of Eau Claire.

Mr. Foster-There are about twentyfive in the county.

Supt. McKerrow - I have been speaking to a gentleman in the rear of the hall, Mr. Drummond, who represents a packing establishment in this city where there is a government inspector who inspects all animals killed, and he tells me that tuberculosis in hogs is doubling up each year the last two or three years, which shows that tuberculosis in cows must be doubling up also, because in a dairy district like the one in which they buy

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