SOCIETY OF NORTHERN ILLINOIS. 347 



OKCHARD, CIDER AND VIXEGAR. 



BY L. R. BRYANT. 



The subject on which I am requested to report to this Society is 

 so general that I have selected as my subject, "Thoroughness in the 

 Management of Orchards, Cider and Vinegar." The time was when 

 farmers bore in the West had but to tickle Mother Earth with a 

 hoe, and she responded liberally. Then, too, it was an easy matter 

 to get good crops of choice fruit. Now the farmer find.s that it 

 needs care and forethought to secure even a good corn crop, and the 

 orchardist who gets any fruit at all usually has the largest share of 

 an inferior quality. 



Let us see how the average man usually manages his orchard. 

 He has an indefinite idea that he ought to set out an orchard, but 

 has made no plans. Along comes the tree agent, with i)ictures and 

 samples, the result, of course, is a purchase, and in due time a de- 

 livery of trees. Perhaps no preparations have been made, and the 

 bundle of trees lies around until he can "get to it," then he either 

 skims lightly over his ground with a plow, or digs holes in the sod 

 and sets his trees without much care, and that is about the last at- 

 tention his trees receive, except to turn in the cattle and hordes to 

 trim them, and prevent too rampant a growth, which might result 

 from too high culture. 



Should his trees live and grow to a bearing age, and he has a 

 surplus of fruit, how does he manage then? Probably he takes his 

 wagon to the orchard, picks some of his apjiles, shakes off the rest, 

 picks up the best from the ground, and without much sorting dumps 

 them all into sacks or the wagon-box, takes them to market and 

 tries to sell them as " choice winter fruit." Those he sells to, either 

 buy of some one else, another year, or getting disgusted, do not buy 

 at all, and say that we can't raise good apples like they do "down 

 east," and that " they wont keep any way." What apples the 

 the grower puts in his own cellar are handled in the same way, and 

 most of them are dumped out to the hogs in the winter or spring. 



Such apples as are not considered marketal)le, are sent rotten or 

 dirty to the cider-mill, the juice put into old, musty barrels, and, if 

 sold, the purchaser is naturally disgusted with the stuff and wants 

 no more. 



Should any apples still be left, that even the grower thinks not 

 good enough for choice cider, he sends them to make into vinegar. 

 This juice, put into the cellar and sold when soured a little, without 

 racking off, again disgusts the buyer and creates a prejudice against 

 cider vinegar. 



Now what is the result of such management? It injures not 

 only the man who produces and sends out the inferior article, but it 

 also hurts the whole trade. When nice sound ajijiles of good (pial- 



