O. V. Cummins— Orchardist 



O. V. CUMMINS 

 "Th* fruit business is mor* complicated now 

 than avar bafora." 



^BOUT 25 years ago O. V. 

 .U jL Cummins was in the lum- 

 ^^^ f ber business in Kell, Illi- 

 nois, when he saw a friend taking in 

 money hand over fist from a few acres 

 of peach and apple trees. There didn't 

 seem to be much expense or work in- 

 volved, at any rate, that kind of work 

 looked better to O. V. than serving lum- 

 ber customers. He set out several acres 

 of peach trees on his father's farm in 

 Jefferson county and prepared to quit sell- 

 ing lumber. 



The farm had been in the family since 

 1860. It never was good corn land but 

 the Cummins family managed to do as 

 well as their neighbors. The average 

 com yield, around 20 bushels per acre, 

 was enough to carry them along but 

 when compared to income from peaches, 

 it seemed like small potatoes to O. V. 



Three years after the first trees were 

 planted, Cummins moved back to the 

 home farm where he could care for 

 them. As he became more experienced 

 in fruit culture he added to his orchards. 

 Today the Cummins' trees, most of them 

 of baring age, cover 130 acres. There 

 are 90 acres of apples, 30 of peaches and 

 10 of pears. 



Of the three kinds of fruit, apples are 

 the best paying crop. They bear almost 

 every year while peaches sometimes fail 

 to make a crop three or four years in a 

 row. Cummins says that the Jonathan 

 variety of apples is his best money crop 

 over a long period of years. 



The Cummins' orchards, so beautiful 

 to look upon in the spring, are the result 

 of carefully worked out plans. All the 

 energy of one man over the most fruitful 

 period of life was spent in the develop- 

 ment of the farm. Now a second man. 

 Nelson Cummins, O. V.'s son, is direct- 

 ing his labors toward upkeep and growth 

 of these profitable orchards. 



The average com fanner may regard 



a farm of 140 acres as a one man enter- 

 prise but such is not the case in orchard- 

 ing. Besides working the year round 

 themselves, the Cummins' hire four men 

 to help during most of the year. There is 

 always spraying, pruning, picking, cul- 

 tivating, fertilizing, cleaning to be done 

 as well as repairing buildings, machines 

 and other equipment. 



"It didn't take long for me to see 

 that my friend who had done so well 

 growing fruit had been lucky," Mr. Cum- 

 mins recalled. "We've had to fight pests 

 ever since we started — it's part or our 

 job." 



In fact the production of fruit is such 

 a specialized job that Cummins never at- 

 tempts to market his own. He picks it, 

 grades it and packs it according to United 



rains interfered with poUenization which 

 is done largely by bees. The greatest 

 hazard, however, was the apple scab 

 threat. 



Apple scab is a fungus disease that 

 causes leaves to wilt and, in severe cases, 

 to fall off. When that happens the tree 

 dies. Continual rains, accompanied by 

 dark, damp weather was ideal for the 

 development of apple scab. 



As soon as the petals start to fall, 

 orchard men coat every leaf with a sul- 

 phur dust or spray to destroy scab spores. 

 Ordinarily one or two sprays will coat 

 the leaves and protect them from scab 

 during the spring and early summer but 

 this year frequent rains washed the spray 

 materials off as fast as they were applied. 

 This made it necessary to spray or dust 



The StoirY o' > Jefferson CoimtY Gronrer Who Fonad 



tfiat Organised Buying and Selling 



Helps Him Make a Profit 



States standards and passes the responsi- 

 bility of selling the crop to the Illinois 

 Fruit Growers Exchange at Carbondale. 

 The selling, Mr. Cummins believes, is 

 too big a task for snull growers to tackle. 

 Fruit, a perishable product, must be sold 

 when it is ripe and few growers have 

 time during the picking season to study 

 market conditions over the country, a nec- 

 essary step if the best prices are to be 

 obtained. 



This spring was a particularly difficult 

 one for orchardists in southern Illinois. 

 The bloom was unusually heavy but hard 



after every rain. On May 5 the Cum- 

 mins' trees were getting their fifth anti- 

 scab spray. 



In spite of the weather, prospects for 

 a large crop are good in the Cummins' 

 orchards. Ten colonies of bees were 

 rented to assure proper poUenization. 

 Even before all the petals fell, some of 

 the calyxes, the green external parts of 

 the blossoms, had begun to swell indicat- 

 ing that they would later develop into afv 

 ples. 



Mr. Cummins believes that the price of 

 apples will be good because city people 



ORCHARDING A BIG BUSINESS BUT LITTLE THINGS COUNT 

 Run-off watar front an adjoining field, caught in a pit, it utad to tpray the trees. Bees 

 hired at $I.2S a colony to pollenate the blossoms. 



