44 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



forty years old, with a spread of about tb.irty-three feet, com- 

 paratively high top needing to be headed back say six to eight 

 feet but leaving plenty of bearing surface, the tree rather badly 

 infested with scale and in neglect ; I would figure about as fol- 

 lows to put the tree in good vigorous paying condition : 



Cost of spraying material $i oo 



Cost of applying same i oo 



Cost of pruning and surgery i oo 



Cost of cultivation and fertilization 75 



$3 75 



Results of Renovation. — I have in mind one of our orchards 

 of two hundred trees, some forty years old, Baldwins and 

 Greenings predominating. I had been told that not m.ore than 

 one hundred barrels of inferior frtiit had ever been harvested 

 from it in a single season. The Baldwins generally required 

 severe topping, the Greenings a great amount of thinning. 

 Scale was entrenched on every tree. Three years afterwards 

 we were harvesting eight hundred barrels of choice frtiit from 

 this same orchard and it has borne regularly ever since. An- 

 other illustration I might cite is of a Baldwin orchard about 

 twenty-five years old. Only a moderate amount of topping 

 was necessary but the scale infestation was most severe. Three 

 years after starting treatment we were harvesting on an aver- 

 age nine barrels of choice picked fruit per tree, while for- 

 merly it would not have yielded more than two barrels of in- 

 ferior fruit per tree. 



When you stop to consider the time and money it takes to 

 plant an orchard and get it into profitable bearing condition, the 

 value of these old trees if they can be renovated becomes more 

 evident. In a recent bulletin issued by the Rhode Island State 

 Board of Agriculture is a most interesting article giving the 

 estimated value of apple trees at different ages. Taking Bald- 

 wins and Greenings as standard varieties, some correspondents 

 place their value at forty years even as high as one hundred 

 and fifty dollars per tree and at sixty years at two hundred and 

 fifty per tree. Others figure from ninety to one hundred and 

 twenty-five dollars at those ages. If they were in good vigor- 

 ous bearing condition, undoubtedly they would pay good divi- 



