Page 20 



Rodent Warning 



BlJ liUKE PoWEI.r 



Yiiiimi, Washington 



UNLESS the fruit grower who has had 

 alfalfa in his orchard takes some drastic 

 step? to control the mice the loss from 

 girdling will be severe, especially if we 

 have a hard winter. 



There is no question but .hat alfalfa is 

 a fine soil builder for the orcliard, but it 

 is also an excellent breeding place for 

 mice. Never but once before have I seen 

 the mice as bad as they are in some of the 

 orchards in the Valley this fall. T have 

 seen orchards where. 60 per cent of the 

 trees were girdled during the winter. This 

 will be duplicated in some orchards in the 

 Yakima Valley and elsewhere if the owners 

 do not wake up to the situation before it is 

 too late. 



The owner of a good orchard cannot 

 take too many precautions. Disc the alfalfa 

 in this fall. Clean away all trash for two 

 feet from around the trees. Drop poison 

 grain in the burrows or holes, of the mice 

 and under V shaped troughs, turned upside 

 down, and in or under other things where 

 the mice can get to it, but birds and fowls 

 cannot. Later if there is a heavy snow and 

 you do not feel any too safe clean the snow 

 away from the base of the trees. However, 

 do not fail to destroy as many mice as 

 possible before real cold weather arrives. 



1 have known the mice, when they were 

 hungry and other food hard to get, to 

 girdle the roots of large trees from three 

 to four feet from the trunk. Trees are 

 never safe as long as there are mice in the 

 orchard. The saving of one tree will pay 

 for a number of pounds of poison and hours 

 of labor. 



The owls destroy a great many mice. Do 

 not kill them. 



Elemental Treatise on 

 Pruning the Apple 



( Continiied from fage 1 3 ) 



Perhaps the most efficient method is to 

 twist together lateral shoots from opposite 

 scaffold branches allowing them to grow 

 together, forming a support. This is best 

 done during the third, to fifth years of the 

 tree's growth. It will increase with the tree 

 in size and strength, giving a strong perm- 

 anent support. 



'C'ORMING the Head— In forming 

 -'- the head keep in mind a mental pic- 

 ture of the ideal tree. The four or five 

 scaffold branches should issue in a whorl 

 evenly distributed between the heights of 

 fifteen and thirty-five inches on the stem, 

 extending outward obliquely and turning 

 upward gradually as the branches become 

 smaller and weaker, giving strength to the 

 limbs and making a wide expansive wine- 

 glass form with a rather open center ad- 

 mitting sunlight and air and affording the 

 greatest possible leaf and fruiting surface 



BETTER FRUIT 



as low down as possible, yet no branch 

 drooping to interfere with cultivation. 



We will now consider the steps taken to 

 secure this ideal form. 



Pruning at Planting — This first pruning 

 consists in cutting back the top and pruning 

 the roots. The roots are usually cut back 

 quite severely in removing them from the 

 nursery row, and should be pruned as 

 lightly as possible at planting time, re- 

 moving only broken, badly bruised, 

 diseased, or dried out roots, and cutting 

 the healthy ones back to live tissue. This 

 allows the wound to granulate, heal, and 

 throw out feeders. A knife or hand prun- 

 ing shears is used. The knife makes a 

 smoother cut, but the latter is generally 

 preferred on account of greater ease and 

 rapidity. 



Head at Thirty-Five Inches — The proper 

 height to head the tree is a question of pop- 



December, 1921 



ular dispute among horticulurists. Various 

 heights from eighteen to thirty-six inches 

 being advocated. 



The idea is to head as low as possible yet 

 allow sufficient room for scaffold branches. 

 The lowest branch should issue at about 

 fifteen inches from the ground to permit 

 proper cultivation beneath. The four main 

 branches should be at least six or seven 

 inches apart on the stem. If closer, when 

 they become large they would appear almost 

 together, crowding badly, at the point of 

 emergence and forming weak crotches. This 

 would bring the upper branch at about 

 thirty-five inches. Some may think this is 

 too high, reasoning that to head lower, 

 would bring the fruiting wood lower. Yet 

 as a matter of fact there is practically no 

 difference. 



{To be continued) 



FOR 



SPRAYING, 

 PAINTING, 

 WHitEWASHING 

 ^ AND DISINFECTING. 



"'^ C/ir/ILOC F/f£EOA/ff£QUESr 



The inestimable value of spraying has again 

 been demonstrated this year While some local- 

 ities report smaller crops of fruits and vegetables 

 than usual, the quality has invariably been far 

 above the average thus balancing the shortage 

 in production. 



This indicates that whether the yield be an abundant or 

 small one there is always a ready sale for choice fruits — and 

 choice fruits can no longer be grown without resorting to 

 the protection afforded through spraying 



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