FORTY-THIRD ANNUAL REPORT. 13 



cutting out the long limbs instead of the short ones. Now what we claim; 

 is that we have been trimming these trees wrong. As the limbs run 

 out we have been cutting out these shorter limbs until we have a circle 

 in the middle of these trees that don't bear anything. Our point was to 

 bring them back. We commenced where the limbs inin out" and we cut 

 off long limbs, and go over the tops the same way. In this way we have 

 lowered these trees six or eight feet, and think we can pick all of them 

 with a 24 or 26 foot ladder. 



Now in planting our later plantings of apples we are setting them 

 closer together. All the planting we have done in the last five years 

 we are setting 20x24, keeping every variety in a block ; I mean by this 

 not mixing varieties. I want you to take that in — 20x24. Our idea 

 is this. You take ' the three large growing varieties — the Baldwins, 

 Greenings and Spys. We have them perhaps three feet, or as low as 

 they would naturally head in a nursery. We claim that when a man 

 gets on a job with both feet that he ought to make these trees show 

 a paying crop in seven years. Trees set 20x24 will not crowd for about 

 fifteen years, and you have eight years of good crops of apples off that 

 orchard, I had your worthy president draw a diagram here showing 

 the orchard — 20x24. We are making it wider one way on account that, 

 as the trees come together we want one way to drive through with a 

 spraying machine, and to haul packages in and fruit out one way. We 

 always make the 24 feet the way 3'ou would naturally come to a drive 

 way. Now at the end of fifteen years they commence to crowd. We 

 go through them diagonally and take out every other row. Now they 

 are 31 feet each way, and they will not crowd for another ten years, 

 until they are about 25 years old. I am speaking now of the large grow- 

 ing varieties — the Baldwins, Spys and Greenings. Of course you under- 

 stand other varieties, such as the Wealthy, Mackintosh or the Duchess, 

 would not crowd 20x24 in a long time, if ever. Now, they commence 

 to crowd at 31 feet in 25 years. Then we go and cut out the odd trees, 

 and you have them 40x28 feet, the ideal distance for Baldwins, Spys 

 and Greenings, and you have been bearing apples all the while. 



Now, I want to give you a few figures. Setting an orchard 20x24 

 you put 90 trees to the acre, and by the time that orchard is ten years 

 old, if you have given it proper care, it ought to show five bushels to 

 the tree; you have 450 bushels per acre. Now you go through and cut 

 these out diagonally and you have reduced these trees to 45 to the acre, 

 and you have to average ten bushels to the tree to get your 450 per 

 acre. Now you go through and cut these out and you have reduced it 

 to 221^ trees per acre; now you have to have 20 bushels per tree to 

 equal the number of bushels you had at five bushels per tree, and you 

 have been growing apples all the while. That is the point that we nijake. 

 We don't mix varieties; I suppose you have been all over that ground. 

 In the first place we don't take a bit of stock in crossing varieties. There 

 may be orchards in the West where they had thousands of Ben Davis 

 trees where they need it, but we don't think we need it in New York 

 State. Now the critical things in my opinion is to spray before the 

 bloom, known as the pink bud spray, and once after the bloom. One is 

 for the fungus and the other for the codling moth. We usually have 

 about ten days between ; this last year I think we had only three or 

 four days — usually it is about ten days. Now if your varieties are mixed 

 you will find that when the Greenings are opened the apples have started 



