128 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



It is estimated that on an average a healthy apple-tree, after the first season's 

 growth, is worth $1, and that its increase in value after that is $1 a year until it- 

 reaches its bearing prime. 



I will not undertake to make definite figures, but it is safe to say that if you 

 start right the use of the land for other purposes will go a good way toward paying 

 the expenses of ciring for an orchard from the time it is planted until six years 

 old. I say if you start right, because work in the care of an orchard depends very 

 much on the selection of the trees and their planting. I think 1 may safely say 

 that a first-class orchard at six years old could be readily sold at $5 a tree, throw- 

 ing the land in, of course, "jto boot." 



It would sell for this because it would pay the purchaser on an average of 

 from 25 to iOO per cent on the investment for 10 years to come, and then a fair per 

 cent for a few years more. But if you have to cut this calculation in two in the 

 middle, the speculation would even then be a good one. 



In raising an orchard for sale you will get cheap land, near some railroad 

 station if possible, and plant advanced trees of early-bearing varieties. Persons 

 buying orchards are apt to want those just coming into bearing, and with as many 

 trees to the acre as can well be, never less than 100. It is immediate fruit and lots 

 of it that they want. 



Then, do you want an orchard for feeding stock, or for home and shipping^ 

 markets ? I would not be surprised to see the biggest apple "boom " yet to come 

 to the sweet apple, at no distant day, for hog-feed. I am not advised as to what 

 experiments the State stations have made, but I have put myself to some pains to 

 get expressions from practical farmers, and they invariably agree that the sweet 

 apple is a valuable feed for hogs ; and some speak from experience. 



1 will here give an instance : A farmer whom a tree peddler had " swindled " 

 into a sweet-apple orchard (by giving him but one variety instead of 10 that he 

 had ordered), assured me that if he were going to plant 100 acres he would plant 

 all sweet apples, feed them to his swine, and buy his family fruit from his neigh- 

 bors, who had "more time to monkey with picking and assorting." He said he 

 didn't care for worms in apples for hog feed. 



He assured me further that by the test of weighing some hogs "on and off"'*^ 

 he actually realized 30 to 40 cents a bushel for his apples, and that too without the 

 work and worry of picking and the loss in assorting — as he shook them off of the 

 trees — and without the expense of hauling them to market. Of course for this 

 purpose, as well as for market, one would want summer, autumn and winter 

 sweets ; and those for winter would have to be put into cellars and fed therefrom . 

 But caves and cellars suitable to the use could be made at small expense. 



If you want to raise apples for market, of course, the varieties must depend on 

 the market. 



And, Mr. Jones, there is no more important point to be considered in the 

 whole enterprise of horticulture than the one of market. In this the apple-raiser 

 has the advantage over most other fruit-growers. Even though he lives away in- 

 land, he can prepare to store his fruit until a convenient time for selling it, even to 

 " wintering it over" in cold storage of his own cheap construction. 



And, Mr. Jones, as the subject of varieties is sufficient for a good lecture of 

 itself, I will only raise it just now, leave its details to others, and merely refer 

 to it in a general way. But if you are going into the business to sufficient extent 

 to justify you in shipping your own fruit, instead of selling it to others to ship, 

 you must see to it that you have a regular and reliable succession of ripening, from 



