672 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



of their profitable qualities. The pre- 

 serving plant pays our fig orchards 

 three cents a pound for figs and the 

 trees pay an average profit of $27 an 

 acre. On this basis, the preserving 

 plant pays for the figs and all expenses 

 and makes an annual profit of $1,500 to 

 $2,000 a year. 



RUN JUST LIKE AN ORDINARY FARM. 



This story would not be complete 

 without reference to the modern farm 

 equipment of the experiment farm. 

 Mr. Cranberry's comfortable home is 

 flanked on each side at convenient dis- 

 tances with homes for the employes. 

 There is a big packing shed, in upper 

 part of which crates and other packing 

 equipment is stored ; a big, commodious 

 barn for the horses and mules and their 

 forage, besides storage room for the 

 fertilizer, of which on an average a 

 carload a year is used. There is a big 

 water tank which is kept full by a gaso- 

 line engine and pumping outfit and an 

 office for Supt. Cranberry, where he 

 keeps his records and shakes his head 

 over such trees as refuse to earn their 

 living. He also has telephone connec- 

 tion with the mill office at Bon Ami, 

 and the messages are delivered and re- 

 ceived over an ordinary barb wire fence. 



Mr. Cranberry has so much faith in 

 the future of the cut-over lands that he 

 is improving a fruit farm of his own, 

 carved out of the stump land, a mile 

 east of Bon Ami. Another strand of 

 the same barb wire fence is reserved 

 for a private line to his own farm. 



It is also proper to state that no 

 "fancy farming" is indulged in at the 

 Experiment farm. Things are not 

 raised under glass or canvas, nor 

 watered by perforated iron pipes. Every 

 thing is out in the open, subject to the 

 same exigencies of wind and weather, 

 of frost and heat, of drouth and flood 

 that the ordinary farmer would en- 

 counter. Its purpose is to show what 

 can be done on the land by any plain, 

 common-sense farmer, with ordinary 

 careful methods, and the result shows 

 for itself. The Experiment farm is an 

 Experiment no longer. It is an In- 

 vestment. 



The number of hands employed on 

 the Experiment farm practically all the 

 year round, averages from 12 to 14. 

 Besides these, extra help is used in the 

 preserving plant. 



Perhaps this looks like considerable 

 help to handle 460 acres of land, not 

 all of which is in cultivation. It will 

 not look so big, and it will be readily 

 seen that none of them have much loaf- 

 ing time, when one considers that here 

 are 82,716 trees on the place, trying to 

 account to Mr. Cranberry for their ex- 

 istence. 



The big orchard is the biggest. It 

 contains approximately 8,000 trees four 

 years old, 7,000 trees one year old, be- 

 sides 33,000 cuttings just making a start 

 in life — all of them Alagnolias. 



In peaches, the Elberta easily leads, 

 with 6,284 trees on the working list. 

 The Belle of Ceorgia, an earlier peach, 

 which finishes its year's work just when 

 the Elberta ripens, has 1,764 members 

 in the colony. Many other varieties 

 were tried, but these two won out in 

 the final contests. 



The Gonzales leads the plum family 

 with 4,000 trees and the others nowhere 

 — that is, comparatively nowhere. The 

 Japan Wonder is a strong probationer 

 and the Abundance so-so. 



The Satsuma orange has 246 self- 

 supporting trees, four and five years 

 old ; 2,000 trees a year old, and 60,000 

 seeds to be budded ; potential but not 

 counting in the census. 



The paper shell pecans will not be 

 earning their way for some time and 

 will be deeply in debt by the time they 

 do; but the 2,283 trees of this kind 

 will soon pay the debt when they get 

 started. There are 150 Kiefer pear 

 trees which promise well but are looked 

 on with deep distrust because of their 

 liability to blight ; and herds of others, 

 few in number, but many in variety, 

 just getting a chance to prove their 

 trustworthiness. 



A new experiment in the way of dis- 

 closing the possibilities of the cut-over 

 pine lands is being conducted by the 

 Long-Bell Lumber Co. on a tract of 

 5,000 acres adjacent to Bon Ami, 

 which have been enclosed with a hog 

 and sheep tight fence to be used as 



