134 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



SOME REFLECTIONS UPON APPLE-GROWING. 



BY PROB\ L. H. BAILEY OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 

 [ Stenographic notes of extemporaneous talk.] 



If one is going to cultivate apples for profit, the getting of three or four 

 crops in the life of the orchard is not successful apple-growing. The 

 general farmer goes into his orchard and finds a crop of apples. This is 

 not success. It is simply discovery. What we must have to make our 

 orchards profitable is a crop every year for a period of many years. Most 

 of our orchards do not bear more than three or four good crops in a long 

 lifetime, and even a large part of these crops will be partially lost by a 

 variety of causes or by poor markets. , 



This discussion has very forcibly shown that the application of certain 

 principles must be made by every man for himself. Although a pro- 

 fessor may know something about the general principles of orchard man- 

 agement, about irrigation and spraying and cultivating, the farmer him- 

 self must apply these things to his own land. He sees the land morning 

 and night, winter and summer, and if any one knows more about a man's 

 farm than himself, it must be the man who holds the mort^-age. So 

 when you ask me why your orchard don't bear, I must say, *'I don't 

 know." Perhaps I could never tell you; but what a persor can do, is to 

 detail some of the general reasons why orchards do not produce. We 

 can indicate what lack of pruning or spraying may do, what improper 

 tillage or injudicious selection of soil can do, and then you must tell 

 whetlier that is the reason of the failure of your particular orchard. 



I believe a large part of our orchards are past their prime. I believe 

 they are already so old and fixed in their characters that we can not do 

 much with them; and I am convinced that the best treatment to give some 

 old orchards is to pull them up and plant new ones. We can not break 

 a colt that is twelve years old and make a good horse of it ; and yet we 

 want to teach the old orchards new tricks and make them productive. 

 The land was not properly treated in the first place, not deeply enough 

 tilled, and the roots suffer from lack of moisture and food, and the trees 

 have not been bred into a bearing habit. 



I believe that there is money in apples ; at least I have felt sure enough 

 of it to put money in apples, expecting to get money out of them. I am 

 not planting my orchard hastily, but getting the land in good condition. 

 I believe I can afford to wait two or three years and make the conditions 

 right, because I feel that in the great majority of cases we have made 

 mistakes, and we ought to begin all over again. 



I do not wish to discourage irrigation, but I do not believe it is going to 

 come into general use east of the great lakes. In Michigan there are 

 severe drouths, and further west the dry winter winds take up the mois- 

 ture; but these are difficulties which are seldom serious in New York and 

 eastward. I do not look for much irrigation in New York for general 

 orchard lands; I do not believe the extra crop would pay for the expense 

 of the plant and the cost of applying the water. I believe, however, that 



