46 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and do the spraying; and my man told me Saturday night there had been 

 two days, and a half, had finished 21 acres, two of them, with two knapsack 

 sprayers. Twenty-one acres planted 30 feet apart. But they couldn't 

 have done it if they were away up high head trees. That would have required 

 the use of powe?: sprayer two hours and three or more men at greater costs 



Then we come a little later, and we are going to thin the fruit. The apple, 

 will all have to be thinned. We are going to have apples that will bear like 

 your Warfield strawberries. Any apple tree that is thoroughly pruned, 

 fed, sprayed and well cared for will set more fruit than it can bring to perfec- 

 tion. Therefore we are to thin our apples, leaving only the best to mature, 

 and if it is near the ground the cost has been reduced enormously on that 

 item, and when we come to harvest our apples we are going to pick them 

 two to four times over to get the entire crop when each apple is at its best. 

 We are not going to let the first matured ones tumble to the ground, and 

 the second matured ones tumble to the ground; but we are going to in- 

 telligently and harvest our apples as they mature upon the tree, and be a 

 month in picking the apples from the orchard or a single tree. You don't 

 pick your peaches all at once, do you, Mr. Secretary? You don't pick your 

 tomatoes when they begin to ripen, and say, "Hurrah! the tomatoes are 

 ripening," and let the first ones rot, and half through the tomato season 

 pick the entire crop rotten, ripe, half ripe and green altogether. No, j^ou 

 pick every other crop under the sun as it comes to maturity. When it comes 

 to the apple, it is one grand grab of the midst of the crop. The commercial 

 apple grower of the future is going to pick his trees from two to four times 

 over. That means work, but it means much lessened work if it is a low 

 tree. 



So I don't like to see the apple orchard of the future stand more than 12 

 feet above the ground at the very highest. I know trees in Michigan that 

 have bodies 12 feet high, and branches up beyond, where it costs too much 

 to harvest the apples. 



Some talk of planting dwarf apples. Some of you professors down east 

 have got the disease, haven't you? There is considerable talk that we are 

 going to dwarf apples. I have watched the dwarf orchards, and I don't 

 think we are going to plant dwarf apples to any great extent ; but I do think 

 we are going to dwarf our standard trees and cultivate them and prune 

 them and shape them, continually holding them down, and when we have 

 got them to about the bearing size we want them, by a severe root pruning 

 partially, and partially by good sharp summer pruning, we are going to 

 shock them into a semi-dwarfness and keep them where we want them as 

 bearing trees. I know that can be done both by the summer pruning and 

 by the root i^riuiing process, that will stimulate fruitfulness, I believe 

 we want to crowd our apples into as rapid growth as possible from the time 

 they are planted in the orchard until they come to a bearing size. Then 

 if we want to let them go to grass or want to slow them up, there are many 

 ways we can do it, and that will stimulate fruitfulness. But I do believe 

 in the thorough culture in the early years of an orchard's life. I believe 

 it should be thoroughly cultured and liberally fed; preferably I would use 

 chemical manure to stable manure, but if I had not the money to buy the 

 chemicals, and the stable manure was handy, I would not be stingy of that, 

 and I would keep most liberal cultivation going during the early months 

 of the year, earl}^ in April and through May and June, and after that, seed it 

 down to some crop. Early cultivation each year — and you cannot begin 

 too early in the spring^ast growing and early maturing of the apple ; wood 



