ANNUAL REPORT. 



243 



ride of some three miles to the top of Aloose Hill in Ox- 

 ford, where the Hale & Coleman farm is situated, was eii- 

 jo5^ed. Xo special jireparations had been made to receive 

 the visitors, but a warm welcome from Brothers Hale and 

 Coleman and ]^Irs. Coleman awaited all who came. The 

 orchards were never in better condition, and the magnifi- 

 cent crop of superb Baldwin apples, reddening under the 

 September sun was a sight to delight the eye. 



Probably no orchard in Connecticut has been watched 

 with as much interest and criticised so severely as this 

 orchard in Seymour. It is located on some of the very 

 roughest hill lands in the state, where it seemed to the 

 writer a man might plow for several days and have no trou- 

 ble from a sticky mold-board. ' The first tract that the 

 Hale & Coleman Orchard Co. bought was in 1896, at which 

 time Air. Coleman and family went to live in an old di- 

 lapidated house on one of the farms. The first work was 

 to plow, and they have plowed ever since ; just keep going 

 lengthways and crossways, but kept ploughing, stirring 

 what soil they could and turning over the stones to find 

 more soil. In 1897 they set out 14.000 peach trees 15 foot 

 apart, the Elberta being the largest of any one variety. 

 Two years later, in 1899, they set 3,000 Baldwin apple trees 

 between the peach trees. After cultivating they sow 

 clover between the trees, never cutting, but plowing under 

 for fertilizer. These first planted apple trees have a very 

 fine crop this year. One tree which the company viewed 

 was estimated by the experts to 3neld six barrels of fruit ; 

 they also have some very fine-looking Ben Davis, but 

 none of the visitors were anxious to taste them. 



On the James farm of 150 acres, which was bought 

 four years ago, they have one orchard of 30 acres — all 

 peaches. It has been reported that the company was get- 

 ting out of peach growing in this section. This does not 

 look like it, and 7,000 baskets were shipped from their old 

 orchard this season, finding a ready market in nearby cities 

 — near enough so the deliveries were made by wagon direct 



