38 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



MY EXPERIENCE WITH APPLES. 



(miss grace TAYLOR, DOUGLAS. ) 



*'As 'one swallow does not make a summer,' ueitlier does one apple 

 crop make an authority on apple culture, but the experience is as fal- 

 lows : 



Our orchard consists of about six acres which were planted in 187^ 8, 

 and one and one-half acres surrounding the house, planted several years 

 earlier. The apple orchard proper was set alternately with peach trees 

 in a light sandy soil, the soil usually considered more suited to peach 

 trees than for apple culture. It is located directly on the Lake Michignu 

 bluff, but is protected from the southwest, Avest and north winds by a 

 Avindbreak of evergreen and forest trees. 



This orchard received the usual cultivation given such plats up to 

 the time when the peach trees succumbed to old age, being some yeai-s 

 more and some years less. 



Upon fruiting, a large number of the trees were found to be our old 

 friend "Uncle Ben," living under an alias, and in the years '94 to '98, many 

 were top grafted to more desirable kinds. The principal varieties now 

 are Duchess and Maiden Blush for early, Wagners, Greening, Jonathan, 

 Hubbardson, Baldwin and Ben Davis. 



The last of the peach stumps were pulled in 190G, having been left there 

 longer than was best for the apple trees. For two or three seasons pre- 

 vious to this, cultivation had been late and limited, so that, in the fall 

 of 190G, after maturing a heavy crop of fruit, a majority of the trees 

 presented a most unhealthy appearance, the tops being covered with dead 

 twigs. It was clear something had to be done to save the trees, if indeed 

 they could be saved. We commenced giving them liberal quantities of 

 stable manure, more thorough cultivation, and sowed rye each season as 

 a cover crop. Fortunately this soil can be worked, wet or diy, and when 

 long continued rains prevented working heavier soil early in the spring, 

 this orchard was tackled greatly to its benefit. 



The habit of the orchard has been to produce a heavy crop alternate 

 years. As the season of 1910 was to be an ''apple year," at blossoming 

 time it gave every promise of a full crop. The abnormally warm March 

 had forced vegetation far ahead of schedule time, but near the lake it 

 is always held back from three to eight days behind the blossoming time 

 farther away from the water. Thus those frosts of early April caught 

 us before the blossoms had opened to any great extent. The cool weather 

 following kept them back, and the blossoming season lasted fully three 

 weeks; a condition often said to be prophetic of a light crop of fimit. 



The cold spell of April 18 to 23, when the mercury played hide and 

 seek with the freezing i>oint, convinced all hands that early and contin- 

 uous cultivation, in order to force growth quickly, was all that would 

 save this year's crop of apples. The rye was now a thick growth, from 

 ten to twelve inches high, and the orchards were all plowed by the tenth 

 of May. From the middle of May until the middle of August the or- 

 chard was dragged about once a week, besides being hoed around the 



