A COMMERCIAL APPLE ORCHARD. 



FIG 6. STAM/NO OUT 

 St. Catharines, Ont. 



six feet long, cut out a notch in the middle of one side 



and bore holes through the ends at exactly the same 



distance from the notch. The notch should be about 



the size of the tree. When all is read\- for planting, 



the board is placed so that the notch fits around the 



stake, pegs are then put through the holes, the board 



lifted up over them, the hole dug, the board is then 



replaced on the peg and the tree placed so that it fits 



into the notch. If haste is necessary one man can go 



ahead with a duplicate board and a supply of small 



pegs, digging the holes 



and leaving the pegs for !• n "^ 



the sruidance of the plan- 



FIG. 7 



M. BURRELL. 



A COMMERCIAL APPLE ORCHARD. 



Sir, — I have just read your ' ' Fruits of Ontario " 

 in the report of the Department of Agriculture 

 and would like your opinion on the following 

 points ; 



(i) If you were planting a young apple orchard, 

 would you consider Strathroy a safe district for 

 profit? 



(2) If you were planting 500 trees (ten acres), 

 what varieties would you select for this district, 

 and in what proportion (out of the 5co)? 



(3) How long could the land be used for garden- 

 ing purposes? 



(4) What should be the averas^e yield per year 

 for ten acres, say twelve years from planting? 

 With six or seven sprayings and fair cultivation ? 



Strathroy. Yours truly, J. E. W. 



( 1 ) Regarding the adaptability of Strath- 

 roy to apple culture, a visit to local orchards, 

 especially in fruit season, would be the 

 safest means of judging. After all, the 

 quantity of fruit, the size and color of the 

 samples, together with the general condition 

 oi the trees, are the points to determine, 

 and our correspondent is in a better situa- 

 tion to look into these questions than we are. 



(2) The selection of varieties for the vic- 

 inity of Strathroy would not differ materially 

 from that for any other portion of south- 

 western Ontario and should include such 

 varieties as Blenheim, Gravenstein, Wealthy, 

 Ontario, Spy and Baldwin. If top worked 

 on Spy or Tolman Sweet the King should 

 be added to this list, and there are other 

 varieties which might be grown with profit. 



(3) The land could be used for gardening 

 purposes for perhaps eight or ten years, or 

 until the shade of the trees hindered the 

 growth of the crops planted between the 

 rows. Otherwise hoed crops may be freely 

 grown in an orchard because the cultivation 

 of the soil and the fertilizers needed for such 

 would be a direct benefit to orchard trees. 



(4) The yield of an apple orchard for ten 

 years would be practically w/7, for these are 

 the growing years, and all the fruit gathered 

 in that period would be little more than 

 samples, unless in an exceptional season. 

 Planters usually forget to count upon the 

 years of waiting they must endure before 

 returns can come from fruit trees, or they 

 would more often depend on other crops or 

 resources to enable them to tide over the 

 lengthy interim between planting apple trees 

 and picking apples. Possibly an average of 

 a half barrel per tree might be counted upon 

 during the eleventh or twelfth year after 

 planting, excepting from Spy and King trees, 

 which would be later in coming into bearing. 

 After that, for two or three years one might 

 count on one barrel per tree, under favorable 

 conditions, and so on increasing until at 

 twenty-five years four barrels per annum 

 would not be an unreasonable crop to expect. 



