COMMERCIAL ORCHARDING IN NEBRASKA. 93 



are twenty-six years old, and yet bearing, nineteen miles south- 

 east of Kearney. Thomas Blackburn, fourteen miles south- 

 west of Kearney, has an orchard of ninety-three apple trees, 

 occupying a little less than one acre. Prom this orchard 

 in 1902 he supplied three families with what apples they could 

 use. He also picked and sold six hundred and four bushels of 

 merchantable apples at eighty-one cents a bushel, or $489.00. 



C. J. Nelson of Phelps county has a peach orchard two years 

 and four months planted. There are twenty-one varieties of 

 peaches in this orchard, and without exception all are in excel- 

 lent condition. They promise to yield two to five baskets to 

 the tree. 



Passing on westward, at Julesburg, Colo. , N. C. Roth has a 

 very promising and successful orchard. At Mitchell, about, 

 eighteen miles from the Wyoming line, Mr. Ed. Scriven an- 

 nually markets a fine crop of apples, cherries and plums. 

 Three varieties of apples gave him an average cash value last 

 fall of $9.00 per tree. It is a peculiar feature of growing fruit 

 under irrigation that the apple tree does not rest one season to 

 recover from an excessive crop. Under irrigation the or- 

 chardist is a manufacturer. Whenever the orchard needs 

 more water to enable the tree to ripen its heavy load of fruit 

 and to set strong fruit buds the succeeding year, the planter 

 irrigates. The tree is therefore strong enough to repeat its 

 best efforts with an annual load of fruit. In this respect the 

 farmer under irrigation has a very marked advantage. 



SUB-IRRIGATED LANDS ARE BEST. 



Our observation would lead us to suggest that for orchard 

 purposes the sub-irrigated lands are the best in the state. We 

 also believe that the irrigable lands have great advantages over 

 lands that depend upon rainfall in the production of frequent 

 crops of fruit. In Scotts Bluffs county in orchards apple trees 

 which produced an excessive crop of fruit last fall are now 

 resting their overladen lower branches on the ground. 



In enumerating some of the successful orchards in cen- 

 tral and western Nebraska I have left until the last the Watson 

 orchard, near Kearney, This is the largest enterprise of it& 



