THE ORCHARDS IN SPRING. 



ibi 



variety, Triumph, was very susceptible to 

 rot and not considered profitable. The 

 owner, John W. Hand, of Suffolk county, 

 decided to bud the whole block with Cham- 

 pion. The tops of the trees were cut back 

 in March. The orchard was given thor- 

 ough cultivation. 



The trees made a magnificent growth. 

 They were budded about two weeks later 

 and will be cut back again this spring to the 

 dormant buds. In this manner a profitable 



and choice variety of fruit will be secured 

 by the loss of the crop two years in succes- 

 sion. At the same time the trees will have 

 a root and trunk system that will make up 

 for this loss during their fruiting period. 

 Mr. Hand is one of the successful fruit 

 growers on Long Island who does not de- 

 pend upon what others do, but goes ahead 

 and finds out for himself what varieties best 

 suit his condition. He is the pioneer fruit 

 grower in his section. 



THE ORCHARDS IN SPRING 



NO time of the year requires more *n- 

 telligent work than the spring to 

 make visible results in the bearing of the 

 trees and vines. The work needs to begin 

 early, and it should be conducted well 

 through the growing season, until the crops 

 are harvested. More and more are suc- 

 cessful orchardists becoming convinced that 

 there is money in all of our fruit crops, from 

 strawberries to apples, if proper attention 

 and cultivation are given. We are raising 

 up as a consequence a generation of fruit 

 growers who get the most possible out of 

 their orchard trees at the minimum risk 

 from blights, insects and other pests. We 

 no longer recognize off years in the or- 

 orchard ; years when the crop is next to 

 nothing, while the following season's crop 

 is so large that the markets are glutted and 

 prices very low. By careful cultivation, 

 pruning and thinning out, the old-time trees 

 that used to produce big crops in alternate 

 years now yield a fair crop every season. 

 If they won't do this, then root them up and 

 plant varieties that will. To make orchard- 

 ing successful we must be able to depend 

 upon a good crop every season and there are 

 plenty of trees that will do it for us. But 

 if vou let the trees take care of themselves, 



they will do as they used to do, produce such 

 a big crop this year that their vitality will 

 not be up to the mark of yielding much fruit 

 next. So they will take a season off, and 

 the owner will say this is the off year for his 

 apples. 



By pruning, thinning out and fertilizing 

 our orchards we strike at the very secret of 

 the success of the trees. In pruning we 

 keep the vitality of the trees in proper limits. 

 It is not allowed to spread itself out in 

 dozens of useless and formless twigs and 

 limbs. By keeping the trees into a certain 

 form and symmetry we conserve their pow- 

 ers' and energies. Likewise in thinning out 

 the fruit we enable the tree to send all of its 

 vitality into the few fruits left, and they are 

 larger and fuller in every way. Some parts 

 of a tree are permanently ruined by permit- 

 ting too heavy loads of fruits to mature on 

 them. Let the bearing be as even and uni- 

 form throughout the tree as possible, and 

 the fruit will be better for it this year and 

 succeeding years. There is a great art to 

 be learned in thinning out the fruits of any 

 orchard, and the secret of it all must be 

 learned by intelligent experience. Then 

 there is the need of adding fertilizers to the 

 soil of the orchard. Plow and harrow and 



