STATE rOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 45 



good cultivation when 3'oung, so that when they come to a bearing 

 age they may be capable of rewarding us with a bountiful supply- of 

 No. 1 fruit. 



Some five or six years ago, while helping my father gather his 

 apples, we kept an accurate account of the number of bushels taken 

 from several of the trees, and I know of two trees, standing thirty 

 feet apart, from which we took twenty-five bushels from each tree ; 

 other trees located in difl'erent parts of the orchard doing nearly as 

 well. Now let us see what this would amount to, seventy trees to 

 the acre. Calling it eight barrels per tree, it would amount to 560 

 barrels per acre ; nowthat is better than most of the ten acre orchards 

 will do, so let us cut it down from eight barrels per tree to two bar- 

 rels per tree, and then we have 140 barrels per acre. Now, surely 

 this seems small enough, but to be safe, let us throw off the odd 40 

 barrels and make it an even 100 barrels per acre, and how many of 

 us, do you think, reach that amount? Very few, I think. And 

 why not? It is just because we fail to give them the proper amount 

 of care and attention. We have been raising too many No. 2 apples, 

 which, taken one year with another, don't pay for handling. Now, 

 in these close times of competition, in order to make the business of 

 fruit growing a profitable one, we have got to so manage it that we 

 can get the greatest amount of fruit possible from the smallest num- 

 ber of trees. If by care and attention we can make one acre yield 

 more fruit than five now do, then we will make fruit raising one of 

 the most profitable industries in Maine. Remember, it is no more 

 work to keep an acre of orchard that will yield annually 100 barrels 

 of apples free from borers and all other insects, than it would one 

 that yielded but 50 barrels. And I believe it is in the last 50 bar- 

 rels wherein the profits lie. 



Some may sa}', if there is a profit in one acre of orchard, there 

 will be still greater profits in larger ones. This may all be true to a 

 certain extent, but when we increase our area at the expense of what 

 we already have, then I think the profits will decrease in the same 

 proportion. Of course we have fruit growers in our State who make 

 fruit growing the leading business on the farm, to such as these this 

 paper was not written, but for the general class of farmers who have 

 an idea that orcharding is but a sort of recreation which needs but 

 little care and attention. And for proof of what I have written, I 

 will cite you to the man}^ orchards that dot the hills of Maine, and 

 until they show better care and cultivation I shall say "four acres 

 are enough." 



