192 



THE CANADIAN IlORTTr I LT IJ R 1 ST 



August, 1913 



The Fruit Grower*' Senator 



In Hon. E. D. Smith, of Winona, tlie well-known 



fruit grower and nurseryman, the fruit growing 



industry has a worthy rea)reeentatJTe. 



ing; to peaches, his friends were doubtful 

 of his success. They had always con- 

 sidered the peach too tender a fruit to 

 grow properly in that locality. Mr. 

 Hartley reasoned, however, that if he 

 could grow the small 'fruits to maturity 

 as quickly as they could l>e grown in 

 the Niagara district, that peaches should 

 do equally well. His peach orchard now 

 consists of ten acres, interpianted with 

 apples and all in bearing. Mr. Hartley's 

 first three crops were bumper ones, the 

 fruit comparing favor;ibly in quality with 

 the best Niagara product. Last year 

 his peaches were a failure, but this year 

 again the trees are well loaded, and a 

 good crop is promised. 



Cherries, Mr. Hartley considers one 

 of his best money-making crops. On 

 the day of our visit thirty-five pickers 

 under the direction of Mr. Hartley's 

 daughters were at work in the cherry 

 orchard, and the shipment for the day 

 numbered well over two hundred eleven- 

 quart baskets. Trees set eight years 

 ago, this year averaged almost six bas- 

 kets of fruit a tree. At this rate of tear- 

 ing and allowing twenty cents a basket 

 from present prices for picking, Mr. 

 Hartley's returns from his cherries will 

 run between three hundred and four hun- 

 (Ired dollars an acre. 



Although Mr. Hartley is devoting 

 more and more of his attention to tree 

 fruits, he still derives a good portion of 

 his revenue from the smaller fruits that 

 gave him his start. Of these, raspber- 

 ries this year proved the most profit- 

 able. As a general rule the crop has 

 been short in most sections', and Mr. 

 Hartley has averaged over fifteen cents 



;i box wholesale, .selling some as high as 

 uventy cents and twenty-two cents a 

 lx>x. The cop all through his ten-acre 

 plantation was g(K)d. Stravvlx-rries oc- 

 cui)y fifty acres. They were ;i small 

 crop this year, the bloom tx'inu injurofl 

 I)y spring frosts and con.scquent growth 

 interfered with by dry weather. But 

 even with these unfavorable conditions 

 to compete with, returns per acre had 

 been greater from the strawljerries than 

 Mr. Hartley derives from the l>est of 

 his land devoted to general farming. 



Mr. Hartley ga\o us another glimpse 

 into the profits that he is deriving from 

 fruit as we drove through a small goose- 

 berry and currant plantation of one and 

 three-quarter acres. "Last year," said 

 he, "I sold well over one thousand dol- 

 lars' worth of fruit from that small plan- 

 tation to the canning factories. This 

 year the canning factories are filled up 

 and I have had to look for a market 

 elsewhere, but I believe the returns will 

 he almost as great as last year." In 

 other words, Mr. Hartley derives a 

 greater income from this one and three- 

 quarter acres than he derived from the 

 whole farm in the days of his adversity. 

 "How do you market your fruit?" 

 asked The Horticulturist representative. 

 "In wholesale quantities only," an- 

 swered Mr. Hartley. "We ship some 

 fruit to Gait, a lot to Guelph, but the 

 most of it goes to commission merchants 

 in Toronto. We aim always to give 

 satisfaction and we find that when we 

 treat dealers right that there is always 

 a ready market awaiting our products. 

 So far as over-production is concerned, 

 I find that people are eating more fruit 

 than ever before, and I expect to ..see 

 consumption increase even faster than 

 production. So far as getting a market 

 is concerned I do not worry at all." 



HARVESTING THE CROPS 



"The picking of the fruit on such a 

 plantation must represent some difficul- 

 ties," we ventured. 



"We have had as high as fifty pickers 

 here at one time," remarked Mr. Hart- 

 ley. "This year we will have thirty-five 

 pickers steadily at work for two and one- 

 half months. They are mostly country 

 girls, with a sprinkling from the city. 

 I have no preference. City girls are as 

 quick as country girls once they get 

 their hand in. We treat them well, 

 board them in our own house, and usu- 

 ally have them back to us year after 

 year, only filling the gap when some 

 good fellow comes along and marries 

 one of them. " 



And what of financial results? Twenty- 

 eight years ago, in the words of one of 

 their neighbors, "The Hartleys didn't 

 entertain company, because they couldn't 

 afford the extra tableware necessary to 

 feed them off of." To-day, after meet- 

 ing the great expense that is involved in 



running such a large fruit plantation, 

 Mr. Hartley has an annual net income 

 that runs into thousands of dollars, and 

 which would Ix; sullicient to buy and 

 equip an ordinary farm. Mr. Hartley, 

 however, is not putting his surplus in- 

 come in the bank, in mining stocks, or 

 in western land. He is putting it back 

 into his farm. He will .soon have an 

 estate that, did he sell out, would enaule 

 him and his children to live out their 

 lives in ease and affluence. — F.E.E. 



Budding Peaches and Plums 



ProL J. W. Crow, O.A.C., Caelpk, Oat. 



In budding the peach and plum, is gr.'ift- 

 iny wax applied over the ratfia binding? 

 Which is the best month for budding in 

 Klgim county, Ontario ? .About what per- 

 centage of loss do the nurseriis incur in 

 budding.' — C.T. 



Grafting wax is not applied over the 

 raffia binding. July or August would be 

 the most satisfactory p>eriod for bud- 

 ding in Elgin county. .\pples, pears, 

 plums, and cherries would Ix- budded in 

 July or early August, jx-aches in late 

 August. 



The percentage of loss in budding in 

 nurseries varies under normal conditions 

 between ten and forty per cent, approxi- 

 mately. It is very seldom that a nur- 

 .seryman gets seventy-five per cent, of 

 a stand in apples, and frequently they 

 get not over fifty per cent. 



Girdling to induce Pruitfulness 



In the May issue of The Canadian Horti- 

 culturist there appeared an article by Dr. 

 C. D. Jarvis on winter and summer prun- 

 ing, in which it was stated that the girdl- 

 ing of fruit trees was practised to indu< > 

 fruitfulness. The writer does not mak 

 plain whether the bark is cut with a kniiC 

 or a band is tied tightly round the trunk, 

 to be removed afterwards. One would ex- 

 pect that if much of the bark were removed 

 the tree would die.— S.P.R., Montreal, 

 Que. 



In my article on pruning fruit trees, I 

 did not explain fully the method of ring- 

 ing or girdling trees to induce fruitful- 

 ness. This practice is common in the 

 middle west, especially in the Ozark 

 apple region. The practice consists in 

 taking about a quarter inch ring of bark 

 from the main stem of three or four year 

 old apple trees. The work is usually 

 done during the month of June when 

 circulation is active. 



The wound thus made interferes to 

 some extent with the down flow of sap 

 and tends to check the growth of the 

 tree during the season. Any operation 

 that tends to check the growth is likel\ 

 to induce fruitfulne.ss. If this opera- 

 tion should be done later in the summer 

 it would probably kill the tree, but if 

 done at the proper time the wound 

 readily heals over. The practice is not 

 generally recommended. In the east it 

 is Ijeiieved that better results will follow 

 summer pruning. — C. D. Jarvis. 



