FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 271 



100 barrels, sold at 75c : - - - $75 00 



10 " cider, sold at $3.20 32 00 



30 " " " $2.00 - GO 00 



Total - $lt)7 00 



To this should be added 10 barrels of apples put in the cellar for family use. 



This same ground in wheat, one half of it would have given about ten 

 bushels to the acre, and the other half, which has not been plowed for years, 

 and grows nothing but weeds, would have done well at five bushels, making 

 37^ bushels, at 90 cents, would equal $33.75. The cost of growing, harvesting 

 and marketing the wheat crop would have equalled, at least, all the work done 

 to the orchard and gathering and marketing the fruit. These figures show a 

 balance of $133.25 in favor of the orchard. 



I regret that I cannot give an example of an orchard in St. Joseph county 

 showing the highest state of cultivation. Such there doubtless are, but they 

 are not within the range of my acquaintance. S. B. Davis, near Mottville, 

 whose orchard is just over the line in Cass county, offers the best example I 

 have found in this part of the State. This orchard, of eighteen acres, the most 

 of which was planted sixteen and seventeen years ago, has been kept well 

 trimmed and manured. It was seeded to timothy three years ago, and has cut 

 two tons of hay to the acre. In 1877 the sod was removed around the trees in 

 the fall, a circle of six feet diameter, and manured with fine manure from the 

 hogpen and barnyard, a two-horse load to three trees. The soil is a heavy 

 black loam with clay sub-soil, and is capable of producing twenty bushels of 

 wheat to the acre. In 1878 the crop of fruit was of superior quality and free 

 from worms. The yield was 900 barrels of shipping apples and sold for one $1, 

 exclusive of the barrel, equal to $50 per acre. In 1872 the yield was the 

 same number of barrels, and the price obtained, $3, equal to $100 per acre. I 

 cannot give the cost of the labor and manure applied to this orchard, but I 

 think the 36 tons of good timothy hay taken from the land would balance the 

 scales ; and bearing in mind that this work and manure is not applied every 

 year, but once in several years, and we must conclude that the orchard has 

 yielded far more profit than any farm crop that could have been grown on the 

 same ground. One other fact in regard to this orchard I think will be of gen- 

 eral interest. A portion of it (about 8 acres) consisted of trees considerably 

 older and grafted in the top. Among these is a Talman Sweet, the trunk of 

 which is about two feet in diameter, the limbs extending a distance of 27 feet, 

 the tree filling a space 54 feet in diameter. From this tree, in 1872, there 

 were gathered seventeen barrels of shipping apples and three barrels of culls. 

 At $2 per barrel, the price obtained that year, gives $34 as the product of this 

 one tree for that year. 



If fruit culture on the farm is not profitable, taken one year with another, it 

 is more the fault of the farmer than the fruit. The orchard is left to take 

 care of itself, no measures are taken to destroy the wormy fruit, the codling 

 moth is propagated by tiie million, and poor, wormy fruit again is the inevita- 

 ble result. To make fruit growing on the farm profitable we should at least 

 give it as much care and attention as we do other crops. Fruit trees must be 

 fed. We cannot expect to take a crop of grain or grass from an orchard, and 

 at the same time get a good crop of apples, unless we manure heavily. Then 

 again the orchard needs protection from the prevailing southwest winds which 



