February, 191 1 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



27 



Intensive Fruit Grooving 



A. W. Peart, Burlington, Ont. 



■P 



TH E general practice in orcharding is 

 to have a larger acreage than is pro- 

 perly cared for. In order to make a 

 fair margin of profit in producing pork, 

 beef, milk, or dairy product, careful, sys- 

 tematic attention must be given to the 

 essential details. The same applies to 

 growing fruit. 



When a person has a plantation lar- 

 ger than his capacity to care for it, there 

 is a loss of money in the land occupied by 

 the trees, and in the trees themselves not 

 working up to their normal level. It may 

 not be wide of the mark to say that in 

 this Province fruit trees are not giving 

 more than half results. There are, of 

 course, many exceptions to this. Some 

 orchards of apples, pears, plums, cher- 

 ries and peaches are managed on a busi- 

 ness basis ; but there is room for a wide 

 extension of the intensive system. There 

 is no good reason why an average apple 

 orchard of working age and ten acres in 

 extent, should not give in ten years 5,000 

 barrels of apples worth $8,000 to 

 $10,000. 



ESSENTIALS 



.4n intensive system seems to involve 

 at least the following factors : 



First — The selection of a proper nat- 

 ural soil for the kind of fruit. Apples 

 appears to be the most profitable when 

 planted on sandy, gravelly and light clay 

 loams ; pears on clay loams ; cherries on 

 high, sharp, gritty, gravelly soils ; while 

 plums are similar in their wants to 

 apples. 



Second — Planting the right varieties. 

 In setting out a young orchard one 

 should select those varieties of known 

 merit in the district where he lives, and 

 then not more than five or six standard 

 sorts to cover the season, thus avoiding 

 congestion in harvesting the fruit. 



Third — Cultivation. When trees are 

 roperly planted it is important to give 

 them a good start. If you want to make 

 a good man you must begin when he is 

 a baby. There is a wonderful analogv 

 between the animal and the vegetable 

 worlds. Cultivation should be frequent 

 ■ until about the first of August to pre- 

 serve the moisture and keep down weeds, 

 grasses and so forth, which also ab- 

 stract water. Your tree will then make 

 a good healthy growth. Throughout the 

 life of an orchard in most cases cultiva- 

 tion should be an annual portion of the 

 care. 



Fourth — Pruning This begins with 

 planting. The head should be formed of 

 three or four main branches, and never 

 of two. Thence on, thin judiciously each 

 year with a tendency towards severity. 

 Too many are afraid of hurting a tree. 

 There is practically no danger of injur- 

 ing our ^rchards. The branches of 



young trees growing too strong should 

 be cut back year after year, an'd old trees 

 going too high should be dehorned ac- 

 cording to circumstances. 



Fifth — Fertilizing. This requires 

 careful, discriminating judgment. If 

 the requisite food is not in the soil then 

 it should be applied. Speaking general- 

 ly, stable manure is good for trees in all 

 stages of their life, especially on clay 

 .soils, when growth is usually slow but 

 productivity light. Green crops plough- 

 ed under are also economical, granulat- 

 ing the soil and retaining moisture. On 

 lighter lands, wood ashes, potash and 

 phosphoric acid in some form may occa- 

 sionally, be used to advantage. 



Sixth. — Spraying. With the coming of 

 increasingly large numbers of injurious 

 insects and fungi, spraying has reached 

 the stage of necessity. This, in late 

 years, has been shown beyond a perad- 

 venture. 



.Seventh — Picking. Fruit should be 

 picked carefully to avoid bruises and 

 consequent depreciation. Careless men 

 should not be sent to an orchard. By 

 the use of suitable extension ladders in- 

 stead of the old long ones, a man can 

 pick more apples in a day from a tree of 

 standard size. 



Eighth — Marketing. The selling side 

 of the fruit business is of as great im- 

 portance as the producing end. Only in 

 recent years have growers begun to real- 

 ize the necessity and advantage of elimi- 

 nating as far as possible the intermedi- 

 aries between them and the consumer, 

 and thus increasing profits. Slowly but 

 steadily cooperative associations are be- 

 ing organized in various portions of the 

 Province. These are giving their mem- 

 bers a' distinctly increased margin for 

 their fruit, and at the sainc time stimu- 



lating the "intensive" system in the 

 management of their plantations. 



The attitude of a grower should be 

 that of a doctor towards his patient. 

 What is wrong with this tree or or- 

 chard? It is not giving results. Study 

 its symptoms, diagnose the case, then 

 apply the proper remedy. 



In The Orchard 



Feed the winter birds in the orchard. 

 They will destroy thousands of injurious 

 insects, and thus reward you next sum- 

 mer. 



Prune out egg masses of tent cater- 

 pillars, scrape off loose bark from the 

 trimks and large limbs of trees with a 

 dull hoe. Destroy cocoons of fall web 

 worms and other hibernating insects. 

 While the ground is still frozen clear all 

 rubbish off the garden spot and give it a 

 dressing of stable manure, which is to be 

 spaded in later when the frost is out of 

 the ground. 



The Maine Experimental Station 

 pruned, sprayed, and dug around an old 

 apple tree eighty years old, and last year 

 it yielded twelve barrels of fruit. Unless 

 your orchard is over eighty years of age 

 it is not too late to save it by thorough 

 pruning, grafting, fertilizing, and good 

 care. 



In pruning, do not take out more than 

 one-third of the whole top in one year. 

 To do so would throw the trees out of 

 1^.-1 lance and cause an excessive growth 

 of water sprouts. Give the tree light by 

 cutting out fair sized secondary branches 

 ;uid leave the small laterals. 



One year wood should be cut to a bud. 

 Older wood to a branch. Stubs left on 

 are not only unsightly, but are good 

 footholds for insects and germs. 



If the fruit grower has from ten to 

 twenty acres of fruit he will need some 

 make of a gasoline power spray outfit, 

 which will l:e found more economical. 



A Mtitn (Huiit) Ptwer Sprtjer at Work » a Waitcra Orchard— N*t« the AdraDta|*>f.Ltw TtMi 



