00 STATE HORTICTI.TrRAI. SOCIETY. 



ORCHARD MANAGEMENT. 



THOMAS SMITH, CHICAGO, ILL. 



Some people think that if a man can grow fruit or is a successful busi- 

 jiess man he ought to be a successful speaker or most anything else. 

 That is not true in my case. I think I would be considered a successful 

 fruit grower. 



I have largely learned from the contact with you men and have taken 

 a cue from the way you have succeeded and tried to put in practice in my 

 own orchard the practical things I have learned. I have also learned 

 from the failures. 



If there is any one business that needs to follow out the scriptural text — 

 "Whatsoever you see to do with your hands do it" it is the Fruit Grow- 

 ing Business. You have to put your whole heart into it — be slow and 

 careful and hurry up. I do not know of anything that is as interesting 

 as is the growing of fruit and no man can succeed unless he did love it. 

 If I get a man that does not love what he is doing, I can't get very far 

 with him. Don't try to get a talker or a fellow that is over-wise, but a 

 good, conscientious fellow. 



There are two orchards about 26 miles apart. — They have nothing to 

 do with each other and the two orchards are on a par as far as perfection 

 is concerned in the growing of fruit — in fact I believe the men have 

 somewhat of competition between themselves. Thej'' are 90% — one 

 place we have 1,900 barrels and only 40 crates of culls which were mostly 

 undersized, or had the skin broken. 



No one has a monopolj' on the Fruit Growing Business. I think there 

 iare some things in the spraying we have learned by experience and fail- 

 ures. We think a good deal of Bordeaux. After the blossom falls we 

 use about three pounds of vitrol and about six of lime to fifty gallons 

 of water. One orchard where I knew there was a little scab, and I was 

 afraid the spray wouldn't help, we furnished the Bordeaux and poison 

 and we got the worm just the right time. That convinced me that the 

 Bordeaux in the summer mixes better with the poison. Another orchard 

 that we continued to spray with the lime sulphur, we found quite a few 

 worms there. 



I believe we are just beginning to understand how to fertilize and 

 its value. I do not care much about the gun — I like the old bamboo 

 pole with a couple of nozzles. One orchard we sprayed six times and 

 we had a little over 8,000 barrels of apples this year. 



I am no great hand to trim trees closely. I like to take out the water 

 sprouts. I do not cut the tops out, for I believe that takes out just that 

 much of the good bearing surface. 



There is one orchard in New York that is 65 years old and it produced 

 60,000 barrels this fall. 



I believe it is a good thing to get nitrate of soda and put on the trees 

 before they blossom out. The apples are large and foliage fine. 



Phosphate helps to make buds, and I believe that the Bordeaux helps 

 to preserve the fruit. We think that it sometimes helps to keep the 

 color in storage. 



Mr. Smith then asked the people if there were any questions they 

 would like to ask. I believe we can grow apples in Michigan with the 

 finest flavor in the world. We should mark our barrels in some wav. 



