COMMERCIAL ORCHARDING ON THE FARM. 357 



COMMERCIAL ORCHARDING ON THE FARM. 



D. M. MITCHELL, QWATONNA. 



We who are here represent to a great extent the people who 

 have almost untold faith in our state as a fruit producing state. We 

 meet here year after year and talk over varieties, location for the 

 orchard, methods of planting, pruning, care, etc. I am not going 

 to discuss these points ; we have had a great many good talks on 

 them at this meeting. The main point I wish to make is that every 

 man who is producing enough fruit for his own use can if he has 

 the room with very little more work and expense produce consid- 

 erable for the market. Do not make up your mind to plant with 

 the idea of producing some fruit to sell and then plant it on some 

 tract of ground that will produce nothing else. Go into it as a busi- 

 ness proposition ; give your orchard as good a place as you have 

 on the farm ; give it the care you do your crops ; look upon it as an 

 investment, and as such look after it. 



After you select your location, choose your varieties and get 

 your trees and plant them as they should be planted, remember your 

 responsibility has just begun. Do your part well and you will be 

 surprised at the returns in dollars you will get out of it for the 

 amount put into it. I am a firm believer in the commercial orchard 

 on the farm in Minnesota; in my opinion it will become an essen- 

 tion factor in farming. 



If there is one- reason more pronounced than another why com- 

 mercial orcharding is not carried on more extensively on the farm 

 it is because we do not realize the profits to be derived from the 

 orchard. There are equally as many and as good reasons why we 

 should produce our own fruit and some to sell as there are why we 

 should raise grain enough for our own use and have some to dis- 

 pose of. Very few of us stop to think that the Wealthy in its sea- 

 son will bring from twenty-five to seventy-five cents more per barrel 

 than the Ben Davis, Northern Spy or Baldwin. There is a man 

 who has a fourteen-acre orchard not far from my place in Owa- 

 tonna, composed principally of Duchess, Wealthy and Patten's 

 Greening, who took $1,025.00 off of it the past summer. That is, as 

 you see, a little over $73.00 per acre. Of course considerable money 

 had to go for expense, which is true of all other crops. This also is 

 c^uite a large orchard, probably larger than is advisable for the aver- 

 age farmer to start with commercially. I give this only to show 

 what can be and is being done in Minnesota. If we can profitably 

 grow enough apples on the farm for our own use, it is not unrea- 

 sonable to say that it is a paying proposition to ^row them com- 

 mercially. 



♦I said in the beginning that I was not going to discuss care of the 

 orchard, and I am not going into details, but let us re- 

 member that cultivation is not one of the things that 

 ought to be done, but it is one of the things that must be 

 done. Many people look upon orcharding as a failure 

 who have not given their trees half a chance. I. am not advocating 

 anything that is an experiment ; commercial orcharding has ceased 



