FORTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT. 27 



all the way from iipl,000 to entire ruinatiou. Sprayed properly and 

 thoroughly five times during the season. Harrowed every week or ten 

 days until July 15th, followed by a cover crop of rag weed. 



in October we harvested from less than 150 of the trees from this 

 worthless (?) orchard over 950 barrels of apples — as fine as we ever 

 grew. In 1912 this orchard was visited by one of the worst infestations 

 of the aphis I ever witnessed, comj^letely covering the entire tree, not 

 only ruining a fine crop of not less than 1,500 barrels of fruit, but also 

 weakened or destroyed many fruit buds then forming for the crop of 

 1913. During August we had a large percentage of this aphis stunted 

 fruit picked as an experiment to see if it would help out the fruits select- 

 ed to remain, and about Nov. 1st, we packed 300 barrels of good seconds 

 and shipped two carloads of minature Baldwins (1 to 2 in.) to the 

 Vinegar Works. 



Nineteen hundred thirteen in addition to the aphis in 1912 crippling 

 of a prospective crop for this season — a freeze with continued low tem- 

 l)erature wiped out a good Baldwin bloom — from the Greenings and 

 Kings however we put up 500 barrels of good fruit. 



Orcliard E. Consists of 125 trees about 45 years old. The varieties are 

 about one-half Rhode Island Greening, one-third Baldwin and five trees 

 of each Northern Spy, Roxbury Russett, Yellow Bellflower and Esopus 

 Spitzenburg. This orchard was on an "abandoned farm," of 50 acres, 

 the buildings on which with an outlay of flOO.OO could not be replaced 

 for 11,000.00 — ^25 acres are in pasture and timber, and the balance fairly 

 good farm land — the soil stony gravel loam — equal to the best for the 

 growing of fruit in the western New York district. This farm I pur- 

 chased in the autumn of 1911 for |700.00. Nothing has been done to the 

 farm except to the orchard, to which the regulation treatment was pre- 

 scribed, viz.: prune, fertilize, spray and till. RESULTS: 1912, har- 

 vested 300 barrels of very fine apples; 1913, owing to freeze with con- 

 tinued low temperature at time of bloom the Greenings were practically 

 all that fruited, of which we harvested two cars (300 barrels) of as fine 

 apples as we ever grew ; the first car sold in New York last month for 

 |5.25 per barrel, the other car still remains in storage. I might also 

 add that a barrel of Greenings from this orchard was one of the three 

 wining the |75.00 first prize against strong competition at the New York 

 State Fair in September, 1913. 



I am neither a theorist, experimenter nor scientific liorticulturist — 

 just a plain practical fruit grower, and like yourselves, endeavoring to 

 raise the maximum amount of good fruit at minimum cost. 



Neither is it in the spirit of an egotist, nor a braggart that I assert 

 that if the "condensed conclusions" of Profs. Craig and Warren were 

 practically applied as demonstrated by many, to the present uncared 

 for orchards of the State of Michigan the apple crops would be increased 

 fully 1,000,000 of barrels annually, and that too at an annual additional 

 expense of not to exceed 75c per barrel. There are thousands of acres 

 of valuable apple orchards in your State today that are on the waiting 

 list for renovation and reclamation which under like treatment would 

 respond equally as well as those mentioned in my experience and the 

 results be a repetition of the same. Thousands of old farm orchards 

 throughout your State, which are now but an eyesore and encumbrance, 

 can be readily reclaimed at a small expense and become a source of 

 both pride and pleasure as well as profit. 



