12 . STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



APPLE GROWING IN NEW YORK STATE. 



B. J. CASE, SODUS, N. Y. . 



My wife said I should tell yon the first thing that she was born in 

 Michigan. I want to say that I am very glad to be here. I have no 

 set speech — I came here to learn. I have been studying fruit growing all my 

 life; my father was a fruit grower before mie, and I have come to the 

 conclusion that we do not half know our business yet. There are a 

 whole lot of things that we take for granted that my father was con- 

 vinced was the Avrong thing to do, and a lot of things that we used to do 

 in growing fruit we have abandoned. The experiment stations in New 

 York State, in Ithaca and Erie, with their quota of very efficient workers, 

 has been a very great advantage, but a bunch of us growers there in 

 New York State that have no use for any scientific information or 

 plans or schemes unless we can work them out practically on our farms 

 believe that these experiments, etc., have to be practiced or they are no 

 good to us. It is one of my old sayings that I have no use for an ex- 

 periment that we have to count, Aveigh or measure to determine whether 

 it is any good or not. If it is so close that we have to count, weigh or 

 measure we have no use for it. We want to see it at once. Now, Mr. 

 Bassett has rather embarrassed me before you in his note in your catalog 

 that I am one of the best fruit growers in America. I don't claim any 

 such thing. I am situated on the shore of Lake Ontario, 30 miles east 

 of Rochester on the Ontario division of the New York Central. I will 

 have to speak largely of my own farm in order to bring out my points — 

 you will have to bear with me. 



I have twenty-five acres of apples. Six acres of it were set by my 

 father in the spring of 1853, making it sixty years of age. It was set 

 two rods one way and three rods the other, setting peaches between ; I 

 can remember the peaches. I think there are 156 trees in that orchard, 

 and that there are 140 or 143 of the original trees there now. I have 

 another orchard of six acres that part of it father set in the fall of 

 1852. There are two or three, or perhaps four, trees there that my 

 father claims were quite trees when my grandfather moved on the fann 

 in 1828. Right across the road from me is an orchard that my uncle 

 set in the spring of 1835, still in good bearing condition ; I don't think 

 there is any idea of tearing it out. I have four acres of orchard that 

 was set about 1870. This we set rather irregular in places several years 

 ago — I think they will not average quite 33 feet each way. I have had 

 to go there and cut them out recently. I have another orchard that 

 was set in 1881, 33 feet apart each way. Then I have an orchard of 

 six acres that was set in the spring of 1882, 40 feet apart each way. 

 That comprises the 25 acres. 



I don't know how I am going to take up pruning. Now, these old 

 apple trees — you can imagine the size of them. There were a lot of 

 apples we could not get with a 30-foot ladder; we could not reach them 

 with any spray, and there didn't seem anything to do but these tops 

 must be lowered. So we conceived the idea — now the experiment sta- 

 tion went back on us but we are getting the fruit just the same — of 



