126 THREE ACRES AND LIBERTY 



ern or an eastern one. While apple trees will grow on a 

 thin soil, so much care and fertilizing is required that the 

 crop will be of little or no profit upon such land. Lastly, 

 we must protect our fruit from insect and fungous pests. 



On land that is free from stones and not too steep, thor- 

 ough and frequent cultivation will give the quickest and 

 largest returns. On such land hoed garden or farm crops 

 may be profitable while the trees are small, but after five or 

 six years it will generally be found best to cultivate it en- 

 tirely for the growth of trees. Organic matter in the form 

 of stable manure or cover crops will be needed, and must 

 be applied in the fall or very early in the spring to keep up 

 the supply of humus in the soil. 



Stony land that cannot be plowed or cultivated except 

 at a great cost may be made to grow good crops of fruit. 

 While the trees are young, the soil should be worked about 

 them for the space of a few feet and then the moisture re- 

 tained by a mulch system, making use of any waste organic 

 matter like straw, leaves, meadow hay, brush, and weeds 

 cut before they seed. Most of the first prize apples at the 

 Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo were grown under the 

 "turf-culture" system. 



Unless you have trees already on your land, it is too long 

 to wait six or seven years for a crop. We can graft good 

 fruit on almost any tree, though the new dwarf trees will 

 bear much sooner, and if we have trees we need not even 

 wait for the harvest of our crop, since the windfalls will 

 keep us in apple sauce, jellies, and pies, for no apple is too 

 green for apple sauce, not even the ones that the boys can't 

 bite. 



The greatest difficulty in the profitable growth of the 

 apple is the market. Much of the profit in apple growing, 



